© Provided by Agencia EFE
Quito, Jan 19 (EFE).- With a positivity rate ten times higher than three weeks ago among adolescents and a pressing pressure on hospital systems, the Quito Mayor’s Office decreed a red alert on Wednesday to try to stop a wave of infections similar to the worst moments of the pandemic.
The accelerated wave, which is not exclusive to the Ecuadorian capital but to almost the entire country, began to take shape at the beginning of December, with its founding festivities, but it was Christmas and the New Year that have had a dramatic impact.
According to data from the Municipality, “cases have increased by 187% from the penultimate week of December to the first week of January 2022” and, what is worse, “the trend is expected to continue to rise”.
In mid-December, Quito had a record of less than 1,000 weekly infections, which have been rising progressively to 11,645 in the second week of January, according to official data.
These are figures comparable to the most complex moments of previous waves in January 2021 and those of April and May of that same year, particularly strong.
ADOLESCENTS AS AN ACHILLES HEEL
According to the Municipality, the Achilles’ heel at this time are children and adolescents between 10 and 19 years old, the least vaccinated group, and among whom infections have skyrocketed more than 10 times.
“From less than one case per 100,000 inhabitants registered at the end of November and the beginning of December, (it has jumped) to 9.6 cases in the first week of 2022,” underlines a municipal press release.
The decision to decree the red alert was adopted by the Municipality following a virtual meeting of the Metropolitan Emergency Operations Committee (COE), and will be in force until January 25, when the Ministry of Health will release a new epidemiological report.
The decree comes to endorse another decision of the National COE, on Sunday, which put most of the country’s municipalities at the “red light” of the epidemiological traffic light, following a spike in infections nationwide of 300%.
Of the 221 cantons, 193 were declared in red light, 26 in yellow and only 2 in green.
The authorities attribute the rapid spread to the arrival of the omicron variant in the country in December, in the midst of a holiday context.
In the week of Christmas, for example, some 4,000 infections had been registered nationwide, a figure that doubled for the New Year festivities and climbed to 15,000 cases in the first week of January.
In the second week of the year, the contagion skyrocketed to 42,000 cases, almost 300% more than the previous week.
LESS CONCENTRATIONS
To the capacity and distancing restrictions at the national level, those of a municipal nature in the capital are now added, some of them already applied a few weeks ago.
The Metropolitan COE has urged the Ministry of Labor to reduce the face-to-face working day in response to the high concentration of public entities in the country’s capital.
For shopping centers and markets, a capacity of 50% is set, the same as for bank branches, restaurants without a terrace, banquet halls and social auditoriums, and also gyms.
Cinemas and theaters must, however, be governed by a lower capacity of 30%.
As for public transport, the Metropolitan COE decided to keep it at 50% during peak hours and 75% the rest of the day, as well as reinforce compliance with ventilation, vaccination card control and permanent cleaning of vehicles.
For the educational sector, which should have restarted classes last 3, but were postponed on a national scale, the Municipal COE now proposed to analyze that its educational establishments remain virtual until the end of the semester.
Mayor Santiago Guarderas, who was attending an evaluation meeting of the National COE this followingnoon, warned on social networks that the red alert responded to the need to “precaution the life and health of the people of Quito.”
“We will reinforce controls for compliance with biosecurity measures and capacity. Vaccination is a priority for the city until 100% immunity is reached,” he said.
After an initial period in which the pandemic was focused on the coastal city of Guayaquil, the Andean province of Pichincha, whose capital is Quito, became the province with the most infections, 223,708 positives (35% of the national total), according to statistics. officers until Monday.
And Quito, with its 3 million inhabitants in the metropolitan district (17.6% of the national population), is the most affected city with 206,912 infections (32% of all those in the country).
(c) EFE Agency
