Limited traffic allowed on Cajas highway; 2.5 million students will be vaccinated; Presidential jet for sale; New Covid variant identified in Ecuador, Colombia

Jueves, 2/9/2021

Hola, Todos –
I will be taking next week off from translating to catch up on stuff I’ve been putting off.

Actividades –

Nada.

Titular –

Reviven las aulas (The classrooms revive) – The first day of in-person school was difficult for many students who were shy about being in a classroom again. They had to overcome timidness, the fear of the virus, the lack of interaction, and not knowing how to proceed after over a year of interacting via a screen. Students will slowly return to classes and improve in the area of education as well as socially.

Cuenca –

La vacunación apunta a niños entre 12 y 15 años (Vaccination targets children between 12 and 15 years old) – Ximena Garzón, ministra de Salud, who was in Cuenca yesterday to sign an agreement about organ transplants and transportation, said that this month is planned for vaccinating the 2.5 million children between 12 & 15. The decision to vaccinate kids younger than 12 has not been made yet because current scientific evidence doesn’t permit it. However, the ministry is constantly reviewing reliable sources to decide whether or not to vaccinate this age group. They are currently evaluating whether one dose for kids under 16 will provide the needed level of immunity. Kids will receive AstraZeneca, Sinovac or Pfizer and lastly the one dose CanSino. The ministry reported it has enough doses to guarantee herd immunity, including doses for children. It calculates that 85% coverage will be enough for herd immunity. According to the Vacunómetro, as of 15:00 el miércoles, 1/9, 10,600,102 people received their first dose, and 8,561,694 their second.

Limited traffic was allowed yesterday on the Cuenca-to-Guayaquil highway through the Cajas Mountains.

HVCM retorna área de emergencia, que fue utilizada para COVID-19 (HVCM returns emergency area, which was used for COVID-19) – The Hospital Vicente Corral Moscoso (HVCM) returned their emergency services to its normal location el 28/8 after 550 days of use as a contingency zone for COVID-19. It set up 3 operating rooms. The hospital had 9 operating rooms, but only 4 were functioning during the pandemic so it is back up to 7 with the last to to be gradually reintroduced. It also set up 7 ICU beds for adults for different pathologies. The number of beds was reduced to 4 during the pandemic when treatment was oriented towards Covid patients. Since moving emergency to its old location, 13 consulting rooms were also recovered so specialities that had been suspended during the pandemic can start functioning again. <Nice to see that some things are getting back to normal, even if we’re still stuck in masks.>

105 universitarios para el internado rotativo (105 university students for the rotating internships) – Medical and nursing students at the U. Católica Cuenca, U. of Cuenca, and UDA will start a year of internship at the HVCM. They start with a month of instruction, and then rotate through Surgery, Clinic, Pediatrics, and Obstetrics-Gynecology. After some practice in the hospital, they will start their year of service in rural health. <So now you know how students get to be doctors in Ecuador.>

Opción para mejorar inglés (Option to improve English) – Ecuador placed 93 out of 100 countries on the English Proficiency Index. People who participated in the study could barely say their name, age, where they came from, and had problems when giving basic addresses to a foreigner. <That’s OK since if the foreigner were a typical gringo, they would have a similar proficiency in Spanish, and could barely ask the Ecuadorian his name, age, origin, and address.> 2.2 million adults took the exam, and the results showed the level of English in Latin America has improved.

Region –

Paso controlado en vía Cuenca-Molleturo (Controlled passage on vía Cuenca-Molleturo) – The Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas (MTOP) announced it has enabled controlled passage at km. 49 of the vía Cuenca-Molleturo-El Empalme. Drivers can circulate from 7-8:00, 9-10:00, 11-12:00, 13-14:00, and 15-17:00. At 17:00 traffic will be suspended until the next day. There was heavy traffic on the alternate routes to Guayaquil: Biblián-Zhud and Cuenca-Girón-Pasaje in spite of structural damage on these routes. <A foto of a section of the vía Cuenca-Girón-Pasaje shows a chunk of road sitting on nothing. How much traffic will an unsupported roadway bear before it finally collapses?> More of the heavy vehicles are taking the vía Biblián-Zhud alternate with an increase from 12,000 to 20,000 vehicles each day.

84 profesionales de la salud (84 health professionals) – 84 health professionals completed their rural year in 27 centers in District 01D03. 35 doctors, 34 nurses, 14 dentists, and 1 obstetrician worked in the cantons of Oña, Nabón, San Fernando, Santa Isabel, Girón, y Camilo Ponce Enríquez. They also visited remote communities bringing health services mainly to the most vulnerable groups.

Nacional –

Nueva oferta para vender en LEGACY (New offer to sell on LEGACY) – By Executive Decree 180, Pres. Lasso started the process to sell the presidential plane, LEGACY EMB-135 BJ. While the plane is being sold, its use is being restricted to use only in exceptional situations defined by the Secretaria General Administrativa of the Presidencia de la República. Lasso explained that the 2 planes for transporting the President are being sold as unncecessary and too costly to maintain.

La nueva variante Mu se expande en Colombia y Ecuador (The new Mu variant expands in Colombia and Ecuador) – The WHO classified the Mu variant as one of interest yeserday. It was first identified in Colombia last enero and is prevalant in Colombia and Ecuador where it represents 39% and 13% of the cases. Worldwide, Mu only represents .01% of cases although it has been detected in 39 countries.

And that´s all for today so Hasta el 13/9 –

Jeanne
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Editor’s note: Jeanne’s Periodico is a translated digest of news from the Cuenca daily newspaper El Mercurio. If details, such as event dates and times, do not appear in the translation, they did not appear in the newspaper (please don’t ask her for them). The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.