PanamaTimes

Saturday, Oct 24, 2026

Minsa enables anticovid vaccination to restaurant and hotel workers

Minsa enables anticovid vaccination to restaurant and hotel workers

The Minsa announced that next Tuesday the vaccination with the AstraZeneca drug will begin for workers in hotels and restaurants in the capital.
The health authorities of Panama enabled a vaccination day against covid-19 for restaurant and hotel workers in Panama City, a measure "highly anticipated" by this sector, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, which is now experiencing a rebound in the Central American country.

The Ministry of Health (Minsa) announced on Saturday that next Tuesday the vaccination with the AstraZeneca drug - reserved in Panama for those over 30 years old - will begin for workers in hotels and restaurants in the Panamanian capital, in a post installed in the Albrook Mall, the largest in the country.

This "long-awaited and requested" vaccination "is a good message for tourism," Domingo de Obaldia, president of the Association of Restaurants and Related Products of Panama (ARAP), told Efe.

The economic activity of the hotel and restaurant sector fell by 55.8% in 2020, impacted by mobility restrictions to prevent the spread of covid-19, and hundreds of these businesses remain closed or will no longer do so due to the crisis.

Likewise, hotel occupancy is currently less than 10% in the country, where many hotels have been closed since last year, according to data from the Panamanian Association of Hotels (Apatel).

Vaccinating restaurant and hotel workers "is going to help tourism a lot. Workers are going to be protected and we, in turn, are going to protect customers," Obaldia said on Saturday in statements to Efe.

Within the framework of the national vaccination plan against covid, which began on January 20, more than 1.57 million doses of the preparations from Pfizer, the main one in the country, and from AstraZeneca, pharmaceutical companies that have delivered to Panama, have been administered. more than 1.8 million servings.

Next week, patients with chronic diseases 16 years of age or older will begin to be vaccinated with the Pfizer preparation in 21 centers authorized nationwide, as well as people 40 years of age or older in the capital city of San Francisco, given the high incidence of disease there.

Panama has experienced an acceleration of new covid infections for several weeks, after having reached control of the pandemic last April represented by a positivity of cases of 5% or less, which is being faced with restrictions on mobility at night and on Sundays in the most affected areas.

For this Saturday 1,317 new cases of covid-19 were reported, after the application in the day of 14,113 detection tests that yielded a positivity of 9.3%, which raised to 407,330 confirmed infections in more than 15 months of pandemic.

In the last 24 hours, there were 7 deaths from the new coronavirus, which led to 6,567 accumulated deaths since March 9, 2020, when the first contagion of the disease was detected, which in Panama has a lethality of 1.6%.

There are 107 patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICU) and 584 in the general ward, while 12,079 are isolated at home and 375 in hotels.
Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Breaking With the Past: One of the World’s Smallest Countries Changes Its Name
AI Is Remaking the US Economy, From GDP Growth to iPhone Prices
Cuba’s Grid Fails Again as Fuel Crisis Deepens
Nazca Lines Flight Crash Kills Thirteen as Peru Suspends Aerodiana
OpenAI Faces Demands for Full Disclosure After Models Breach Hugging Face
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Why Americans Queue for $15 Ice Cream and a $100 Caviar Pint
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Venezuela’s Earthquake Devastation Turns U.S. Investment Opportunity Into a Thirty-Seven Billion Dollar Reconstruction Challenge
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
The Ledger Will Not Trust on Faith
Trump Administration Pressures Banks to Restrict Financial Access for Undocumented Immigrants
The Ten World Cup Finals That Defined Football History
Smartphones Are Getting More Expensive, Sales Are Collapsing, and Even Apple Admits: "Prices Will Rise"
The AI Race Enters Its Infrastructure Era
Colombia Influencer Dies After Cosmetic Procedure at Unlicensed Bogota Salon
A Quiet Bastille Day: France Grapples with World Cup Heartbreak and Leftover Fireworks
Spain in Ecstasy: "We Feel Unbeatable, We Taught the Whole World a Lesson"
On the Island That Did Not Yield to Trump, There Is No Electricity, and 10 Million Live in Darkness
World Cup Visitors Turn American Big-Box Stores Into Souvenir Stops
Anthropic Reengineers Agentic Architecture to Shift Autonomous Workplace Automation to the Cloud
Global Crisis Alert: Escalating Middle East Tensions and UK Political Upheaval
Japanese Technology Firm Fujitsu Launches Advanced Artificial Intelligence Tool for Corporate Disclosures
South Africa Officially Launches Nationwide Campaign for Highly Contested Local Government Elections
United Kingdom Commits Additional Funding for Unexploded Ordnance Clearance in Laos
Singapore Announces Stringent New Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Commercial Cooling Systems
Cambodia and Thailand Hold High-Level Border Security Talks at United Nations Headquarters
Myanmar Military Government and China Sign Major Agreement to Upgrade Media and Cultural Cooperation
Knife Attack at Swiss Train Station Leaves Three Injured in Suspected Act of Domestic Terrorism
Transnational Extortion Gang Threatens Canadian Police With Army of One Thousand Armed Operatives
Australia Imposes Forty-Two-Day Quarantine on Cruise Ship Passengers Following Deadly Hantavirus Outbreak
International Monetary Fund Unlocks Seven Hundred Million United States Dollars for Sri Lanka Following Economic Reforms
Australia Launches Record One Point Four Billion Dollar Lawsuit Against Chemical Giant 3M Over Contamination
China and Canada Foreign Ministers Meet in Ottawa in Effort to Stabilize Strained Diplomatic Ties
Indonesia Demands Urgent United Nations Security Council Reform Amid Escalating Global Conflicts
Extreme Weather Patterns Trigger Severe Drought in Madagascar and Destructive Flooding in East Africa
Indian State of Karnataka Faces Political Upheaval as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Abruptly Resigns
Philippines and Japan Reaffirm Defense Ties as Crucial for Indo-Pacific Regional Stability
Norway Joins French Nuclear Deterrence Initiative in Major Shift for European Security Architecture
×