A fiery debate over public well being and private rights gripped Puerto Rico this week, intensifying on Wednesday as legislators clashed with medical consultants.
The talk started earlier this month after the administrator of Puerto Rico’s Home of Representatives introduced the necessary use of face masks, following numerous COVID-19 circumstances reported within the seaside Capitol constructing.
One conservative legislator, Lisie Burgos, refused to put on a masks and was faraway from a listening to final week, prompting her to file a lawsuit on Monday that has but to be resolved. Within the meantime, a decide that day ordered the island’s Home of Representatives to not “prohibit, stop or intervene” with Burgos’s prerogative.
Many had been outraged by the ruling, noting that the island of three.2 million folks is reporting some 1,100 COVID-19 circumstances a day, with almost 25% of exams returning a optimistic outcome.
Final November, Puerto Rico’s authorities additionally declared a flu epidemic.
Hours after the decide’s ruling on Monday, the president of the Home of Representatives declared a state of emergency and introduced that each one classes could be held just about till the top of February.
Puerto Rico’s Senate has stated it isn’t contemplating related measures.
As representatives gathered behind their pc screens this week, they tackled a proposed invoice that might remove vaccine necessities for schoolchildren youthful than 5, a proposal that additional enflamed the continued well being debate.
On Wednesday, medical consultants condemned the invoice.
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