Students head back to school; Radar explosion damage is minor, investigation underway; New Covid case spike possible; Driver’s license services resume

Nov 10, 2021 | 5 comments

Martes, 9/11/2021

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –
Nada.

Titular –

Asistir a las aulas será obligatorio (Attendance in classrooms will be mandatory) – The schedule for a return to mandatory in classroom instruction will start el 22/11. The return will be progressive starting with students in Bachillerato Técnico in rural zones. After that will be all high school students who were the first to receive vaccines. Following them will be students in Básica Superior or 11-15 year olds with students over 5 last. The process will end in enero, 2022. This will end the virtual classes which started el 13/3/2020. Juan Zapata, president of the national COE, thought that vaccinations of teachers and students went well with very few cases of Covid, with good management of the pandemic in the education sector. Currently 6,877 or 46% of all schools in the country are in blended classes. This represents 612,666 students and 72,636 teachers.

Most Ecuadorian school children will return to the classroom by January 2022..

Para quienes no deseen (For those who do not want) – Those children whose parents or guardians don’t want them in physical classrooms can be transferred to schools that work in long distance education exclusively. The Ministerio de Educación will facilitate the transfer of these students into long distance schools and high schools. <I wonder if unvaccinated kids will need to go to these long distance schools?>

Cuenca –

Reanudan la entrega de licencias (Resumption of delivery of licenses) – <Note that this article is exceptionally confusing so the probability of a bad translation is high.> If you had an appointment with the Agencia Nacional de Tránsito (ANT) and were not served because of the cyberattack that occured last 21 de octubre, ANT has resumed issuing drivers licenses at their offices in Azuay. The office hours are from 8-17:20, and customers who had appointments between 21/10 and 4/11 can go to the offices in Cuenca, Gualaceo, and Girón according to the following schedule. People with appointments for today <or 21/10 depending on which date you think “este fecha” refers to> and from 22/10 could have gone today. Tomorrow people with an appointment for “este día” (this day) and from 25/10 will be served. El jueves, appointments for este día (jueves?) and from 26/10 will be served. And so on and so on. <Clear as mud, right?>

Services include issuing first time licenses, license renewals and duplicate licenses. If your license expired after 1/1/2020, you have until 12/31/2021 to renew it. Drivers need to present the original payment, the printed appointment from the ANT website, the expired license, or the report if the license was stolen or lost. The cities of Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca are also resuming service to matriculate (register) vehicles.

Plantón por pacientes con diabetes (Sit-in for patients with diabetes) – Parents of children who have type 1 diabetes are planning a sit-in este miércoles a las 10:00 at the IESS office in El Centro. They are protesting so that the treatments for their children doesn’t stop. Currently the kids in the IESS system are being treated at the Hospital del Río which decided not to treat them until IESS pays its debts. Parents say that insulin should be dispensed by the public hospitals since their childrens’ lives are at risk.

Hospitales listos para eventual repunte de Covid-19 (Hospitals ready for a possible Covid-19 rebound) – There is an expectation of a possible increase in Covid infections due to the last holiday. The Ministerio de Salud Pública announced on el 6/11, that nationally, 58 beds were occupied, 12 in intermediate care, and 159 in intensive care. IESS said that as of 4/11, there were 11 general Covid beds occupied and 52 ICU beds at a national level. In Cuenca, the José Carrasco Arteaga hospital had 3 of their 7 ICU beds occupied.

The Vicente Corral Moscoso regional hospital is watching to see if there is an increase in cases in the coming week. They have 6 ICU beds and 6 general Covid beds with the possibility of increasing the beds to 9 and 10 respectively. Between septiembre and octubre, they had an average of 3 patients in ICU beds. The date with the most ICU patients was on 30/10.

Proceso de vacunación continúa (Vaccination process continues) – The Zone 6 Coordinator announced that people over 18 who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over 2 months ago can get a Pfizer booster at the the Paraíso and Tomebamba health centers (next to the Manuela Garaicoa de Calderón high school) from 8-16:00. Vaccinations of children under 12 is continuing at the coliseo at the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, and second doses for teens up to 17 is at the Coliseo Jefferson Pérez. Seniors can get booster shots from AstraZeneca at any health center. <Has Ecuador reached herd immunity yet?>

Produbanco anuncia la reposición de su sistema (Produbanco announces the replacement of its system) – Produbanco’s system crashed yesterday nationally. Clients were only able to withdraw up to $500 at the teller windows. The problem affected the technological system leaving mobile banking, cajero (ATM?), electronic transfers and bill payments out of service. The problem has been fixed.

Sucesos –

Cumplirán 2 investigaciones tras estallido y daño de radar (They will complete 2 investigations after blast and radar damage) – The Ministerio de Defensa and the Fuerza Aérea Ecuatoriana FAE) are conducting 2 investigations with technical teams to determine the circumstances of the explosion that damaged the radar on the Montecristo hill in Manabí. The blast could have been set by someone working within the facility or by an outside person. <Like some cartel member?> The Air Force investigators will lift the parts of the radar imbedded in the floor. Specialists with the National Police are looking for traces of causes of the damage. The radar structure is intact, but the minor damage disabled it. The radar is covered by insurance <Now that’s different .You Minnesotans know what “that’s different” means.> A preliminary inspection determined the explosion damaged the base which allows turning the radar. When the explosion occured, there were 8 people responsible for security. The radar was put into service in late octubre to cover a “punto ciego” (blind spot) which allowed unidentified aircraft into the space.

And that’s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne

CuencaHighLife

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