State of emergency could end in December

The state of emergency in Panama that has been in place since March  2020 due to Covid-19 could be lifted in December.

The announcement came on Tuesday, November 2, from the Minister of Health, Luis Francisco Sucre, who said that the issue is under evaluation.

The end of the state of emergency at the end of the year will be “as long as everything goes as it is” and the Covid-19 figures remain low, said the Minster.

Through Cabinet Resolution 11 of March 13, 2020, the “national state of emergency was declared, as a consequence of the effects generated by the infectious disease Covid-19, The state of emergency allows the Executive to make multi-million dollar exceptional public contracts.

Sucre said “we have not yet come out of the pandemic.” He commented that it seems that the country is “on a honeymoon” with the virus, however, “we still have some deaths.”

The minister added that he hopes that after the celebration of the national holidays there will not cause an increase in the number of cases. “We must all take care of ourselves,” he emphasized.

In Panama, 472,736 accumulated cases of the new coronavirus are registered. The accumulated death toll is 7,317, according to the report of the Department of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health on Monday, November 1.

In the last week there were four days when no deaths due to the virus were recorded.