Americas
A partying, dancing Panamanian doctor emerges as the latest coronavirus threat to Puerto Rico
From salsa festival to sickbed.
Puerto Rico on Wednesday night said it was trying to trace the movement of a Panamanian partygoer who spent the weekend dancing on the island before being confirmed with COVID-19 at home in Panama.
In a press conference, Gov. Wanda Vázquez said the unnamed man had traveled to New York, Miami and Panama before arriving in Puerto Rico on March 4, where he and four companions went dancing in the San Juan suburb of Isla Verde and then attended a salsa festival on Sunday, despite running a fever and feeling ill.
“Even though this person was a doctor he went to the National Day of Salsa,” a music festival attended by more than 25,000 people, she said. “He was sitting in Row M in front of the stage.”
The man had to leave the event early because he was feeling unwell and traveled back to Panama on Monday on Copa Airlines flight, she said.
Vázquez asked people who had been in the VIP section of the music festival in the rows K through O to isolate themselves and be vigilant for the flu-like symptoms that come with COVID-19.
Even so, she said a Puerto Rican companion of the man, as well as the person who’s apartment he was staying at, have not come down with symptoms.
The case of the Panamanian doctor illustrates some of the challenges of trying to limit the impact of the coronavirus.
On Thursday, Vázquez declared a state of emergency and said there were now 17 suspected cases of coronavirus on the island.
On Wednesday, authorities said there were five suspicious cases on the island that are still being evaluated. Among them is an 86-year-old man who had not traveled off the island but was taken to the hospital with severe respiratory problems.
El Nuevo Dia newspaper said the man had been the resident of a nursing home, making other cases more likely.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 3.2 million, may be particularly susceptible to the coronavirus, which can be lethal for the infirm the elderly. Its hospitals have been stressed by years’ of natural disasters and economic malaise, and the population is aging.
Some 20.7% of the island’s population is over 65 years old, according to U.S. Census figures. If it were a state, it would be the oldest in the union, ahead of Maine (20.6%), Florida (20.5%) and West Virginia (19.9%).
Puerto Rico reported its first suspicious case of coronavirus on Sunday, when authorities said a 68-year-old Italian woman, who arrived on a cruise ship from Fort Lauderdale, had been interned in the hospital with pneumonia.
That case has generated controversy, as the passengers on that cruise ship, the Costa Luminosa, had been denied entry on Friday to Jamaica over coronavirus concerns, and afterward were not allowed to disembark in Antigua and Barbuda.
Despite the suspicious cases, Puerto Rico is still awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control.
As the novel coronavirus has radiated across the world from China, Latin America and the Caribbean was one of the last regions to be hit. According to the Pan American Health Organization, the only countries on the American mainland that have not reported coronavirus are Uruguay, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize.
According to Johns Hopkins University, there are almost 126,000 cases worldwide that have caused 4,615 deaths – the vast majority of the fatalities have been in China.
Panama and Argentina have each reported one death due to the coronavirus.
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