Shortly after news emerged that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday about obtaining doses of the Sputnik V Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine, the 67 year-old President Obrador announced that he had tested positive for the virus, and that while his symptoms are mild, he is now undergoing medical treatment. The Mexican President has been criticized by political opponents and media groups for not setting a good prevention example in public as he has rarely been seen wearing a mask, continues to take many commercial flights, and resisted locking down the economy. On the other hand, supporters of President Obrador say that his resistance of locking down the economy is justified, noting the devastating effect it could have on citizens, especially those who live paycheck-by-paycheck.

As of now, Mexico has confirmed over 1,700,000 cases of the coronavirus alongside nearly 150,000 Covid-19-related deaths. Local media reports that many hospitals in the capital of Mexico have been near or over capacity for weeks as a surge of cases were reported following the winter holiday season. As of now, Mexico has administer about 630,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

NOTE: The first image used in this article was retrieved on January 24th, 2021, at 18:15 local Vancouver time from https://www.flickr.com/photos/presidenciamx/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/presidenciamx/29018881897/in/album-72157700029010085/). It was originally uploaded on August 9th, 2018. This image is used under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). The second image of the Mexican flag was retrieved from the public domain, and does not require attribution or citation for commercial purposes.