The senator for San Pedro de Macorís, Jose Hazim Frappier, has tested positive for Covid-19. Somos Pueblo online news service reports that just five days ago, he had downplayed the virus, saying: “The coronavirus does not exist in this country.”
Hazim is a medical doctor who owns the Universidad Central del Este (UCE). He is being treated at home. It is probable that he caught the virus when attending a fundraising dinner held in San Pedro last week for the rebuilding the central park in that municipality. San Pedro now has a cluster of cases.
At the same dinner were many Catholic Church representatives and 88-year old Kalil Haché, who had to be admitted on 16 March to the Ramon de Lara Hospital for Covid-19 treatment.
There are reports that there are 11 confirmed cases of people attending the fundraiser and more than a 100 persons under observation.
The Ministry of Public Health has said that this dinner, the 14 March wedding in Punta Cana and Dominicans returning from the Costa Favolosa cruise are responsible for the spreading of the most cases.
Read more in Spanish:
Somos Pueblo
Somos Pueblo
24 March 2020