Private hospitals also at capacity; 50 more ventilators coming as case-peak approaches; Restaurants try new strategies; Road collapses

Martes, 21/7/2020

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –
Nada.

Otras cosas –

Titular – Colapsa vía a Mazar (Road to Mazar collapses) – A stretch of the via Matrama-Mazar at the San Pedro community in the Pindilig parish in Azogues collapsed last sábado, leaving 3 houses at risk. The 14 members of 3 the families were immediately evacuated to the local school and parish center. Heavy rains and saturation of the hillside were the suspected cause of the collapse. The president of the parish junta said that a second order lastre (gravel?) road was destroyed by a slide last month.

Caso Sobornos 2012-2016 – El Tribunal Penal del la Corte Nacional de Justicia (The Criminal Court of the National Court of Justice) ratified the 8 year prison sentence against ex-president Rafael Correa, ex-VP Jorge Glas and another 14 defendents who were business owners and officials in the last Government for their involvement in the Sobornos (Bribery) 2012-2016 case. Suspension of political rights of the indicted is also for 8 years, reduced from 25 years in the first sentencing. Part of the sentence was a collective payment of $14,745,297. The convicted will have 5 days to pedir la casación (I think the last appeal.) after formal notification of the sentence.

Health officials say that biosecurity measures, such as taking temperatures, continue as Covid-19 cases reach a peak. (El Mercurio)

Hospitals full of Covid patients – Julio Molina, Zone 6 health coordinator, announced that the peak in cases started este domingo with 108 new cases in one day bringing the weekly number to 279 with all ICU beds full at the public hospitals. As of ayer, there were 51 critical patients in the public hospitals which will be adding to their capacity with 50 more ventilators towards the end of the week. The medical director of the Clínica Santa Inés agreed that the peak has started and that the intensive care beds are completely full at Santa Inés as well. <Now is not the time to have any other sort of major medical emergency.>

There have been 127 deaths in hospital, an average of 1 per day since the start of the health emergency, and more patients with or suspected of having Covid dying at home. According to mortuaries in the city, they attend to 1-4 cases per day. ECU-911 has picked up 276 bodies, 79 in in the last 30 days. A Cuencana researcher at the Universidad de Chile said that projections show that the peak contagions would start the last week in julio and continue to the first week of agosto, but the lack of discipline by the citizenry could extend the peak into agosto and affect the ability of hospitals to respond.

Misuse of bus cards – Manolo Solís, the president of the Cámara de Transporte de Cuenca (CTC) said that the subsidized fare cards for the disabled, elderly and students have been misused by people not in those groups. <So the rich get disability cards and import luxury cars, and the poor borrow granny’s bus card.> This has been getting more common and the CTC is using the security cameras on the buses to find and sanction the infractors. Solís said that this hurts the CTC which has to operate at lower capacities and is still owed $2 million by the city. Solís said that the CTC is in talks with the city to come to an agreement that will allow it to balance its income, which has been reduced during the health emergency.

Elección interna (“Primaries”) – <This is for all of you studying for your citizenship test or just interested in civics.> From el 9-28 de agosto, political parties and movements need to hold an internal process to select their candidates for the general elections in 2021. These elections will be watched by the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral). There are three ways for the political groups to hold their internal elections: open primaries with universal, free, equal, voluntary, direct, secret and publicly scrutinized voting by non-affiliated (to the party) voters; closed primaries with free, equal, etc. by voters who are affiliated or permanent adherents to the party; or representative elections according to the bylaws of the political group.

Only the candidates who have been selected in this way may register their candidacies. The period to declare candidacy is from 18/9 to 7/10. Campaigning can be done from 31/12/2020 to 4/2/2021. A presidential debate is scheduled for 17/1/2021, and election day for the first round is 7/2. If a second round is needed, it will be 11/4.

Temporary cedula substitute – The Dirección General de Registro Civil, Identificación y Cedulación announced that a Certificado de Identidad y Estado Civil, good for 2 months, can replace a cedula. This can be done on line so that anyone needing a cedula for the first time, or renewing one can avoid crowding in their offices. To get one, go to www.registrocivil.gob.ec and click on Agencia Virtual. After you sign in go to Certificados Simples and click on Agregar Certificado de Identidad y Estado Civil. Then go to your shopping cart to review the application and certificate and if it’s OK, click Método de Pago. Once you’ve paid the $5.00 fee, the certificate will be in PDF format to download and use. <Nice to get step by step instructions for computer dummies like me, or for those of you who don’t know any Spanish.>

IESS procedures – The IESS in Azuay has a new system to carry out face-to-face procedures without lines or crowds. <Looks like part of a sentence got cut off so this is my best guess as to what the item says.> There’s a new Turno en linea (appointment on line) system. And there’s El Centro de Atención Universal de Azuay which provides care, exclusively, for procedures that require physical presence from 8-16:00. <Looks like you’re going to have to negotiate the IESS website on your own for more details. Now don’t you wish you’d paid more attention to learning Spanish?>

Traffic signals – The Unidad Ejecutora del Proyecto Tranvía (UEPT) is rolling out a campaign on social networks to inform the populace about what the traffic signals along the Tranvía route mean. <Now, I wish I’d paid more attention to learning computer s**t.>

Businesses trying new strategies – The impact of first, the strike; then the lock down; and finally the health emergency has made businesses rethink how they do business. Many are reducing prices, giving discounts, and adding new products. One example is the Raymipamba restaurant which was founded in 1933. The owner has added other items to his menu including pizza, hamburgers, lasagna, tigriguillo for breakfast, and Coastal food. The restaurant delivers and he has reduced prices around 15-20% with almuerzos dropping from $4 to $3.50. The restaurant is observing all biosecurity protocols.

And that’s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne