Mexican president admits fainting due to COVID-19

MEXICO CITY

Mexico’s president acknowledged Wednesday that he had briefly fainted over the weekend due to coronavirus.

“It was like I fell asleep. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I did briefly faint, because of low blood pressure,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a videotaped chat from the National Palace in Mexico City.

He said he fainted during a meeting on the Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday, when he tested positive for coronavirus.

Local media reported that Obrador felt faint Sunday morning and had to cancel a tour, something his presidential spokesman denied at the time.

Obrador, 69, who caught COVID-19 twice since 2021, had a heart attack in 2013.

Last year, Obrador underwent cardiac catheterization at a military hospital.

*Writing by Gozde Bayar