Chilean President Sebastian Pinera should pay a superb of $3,500 after he was seen posing for a selfie on the seaside and not using a masks, flouting the nation’s Covid-19 guidelines. He reported his personal violation to well being officers.
Pinera was hit with the penalty on Friday, native well being authorities introduced in a assertion, noting that the president pays greater than than 2.5 million Chilean pesos (simply over $3,500) after submitting a “self-complaint” notifying them of his “non-compliance with the usage of a masks in a public area” within the coastal commune of Zapallar.
Nevertheless, the superb solely got here after Pinea’s maskless selfie, apparently taken with a stranger on the seaside on December 5, made the rounds on-line and drew outrage from residents, with some blasting the chief for violating guidelines imposed by his personal administration.
Lower than a day after the picture surfaced, Pinera issued an apology on social media, calling the bare-faced picture op a “mistake that I remorse.”
“Yesterday I went for a stroll on the seaside, which I had not executed since final yr. The stroll was fairly lonely till some individuals acknowledged me and requested me to take an image,” he stated.
Certainly I ought to have placed on the masks, however due to the velocity with which the occasions occurred I didn’t do it, and it was a mistake that I remorse and I apologize…Indisputably, private care is essential to keep away from new infections and we should all respect the foundations.
The selfie debacle is just not Pinera’s first photo-based gaffe. He sparked outrage after showing in a snap at a festive pizza get together on the identical evening that large political protests ignited within the nation’s capital, Santiago, final yr.
Chile has tallied greater than 581,000 coronavirus infections and a few 16,000 deaths throughout its outbreak, in accordance with knowledge gathered by Johns Hopkins College. The Latin American nation noticed a peak in instances over its winter, between Could and June, with new infections petering out in latest weeks with the arrival of hotter climate.
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