President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras said late Tuesday that he had tested positive for coronavirus, but was only suffering from mild symptoms and would continue in his job.
“Because of my work, I haven’t been able to stay at home 100 percent,” Hernández said in a televised appearance, referring to how he may have contracted the virus. “Now I will do my work through virtual media, through telework.”
He said doctors had advised him to rest and that he would continue with medical evaluation. He plans to isolate himself but continue running the government, he said in a statement.
Hernández is just over two years into his second term as president. His government imposed a strict nationwide curfew in mid-March to limit the spread of covid-19, but started re-opening the battered economy a week ago.
Latin America had time to prepare for the coronavirus. It couldn’t stop the inevitable.
Honduras has 9,178 confirmed cases of coronavirus and has suffered 322 deaths, according to a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
The president said two of his aides and his wife, Ana, had also tested positive for the virus.
Hernández has been a deeply controversial president. He won a second term in a 2017 election that was criticized for being plagued with irregularities. He was the target of widespread protests last year led by teachers and doctors angered by planned cuts in government funding.
He has also been accused of ties to drug gangs. Hernández’s brother Tony, a former Honduran congressman, was convicted in U.S. court last year of trafficking cocaine. During that trial, U.S. prosecutors alleged that the current president had taken a $1 million bribe in 2013 from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
