Vaccination rate slows due to reduced shipments; Hospitals complain about lack of medicine; Gallery helps local artists; High fuel prices incite protests

Jueves, 13/5/2021

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –

De la pagina cultural –

Artesanos inauguran tienda y galería (Artisans open store and gallery) – AYNI, a space where artisans can sell their works, opened today. A group of craftspeople formed a cooperative with the help of CIDAP, the CCE, and Jardín Azuayo to improve their ability to commercialize their work. The exhibit at Pres. Córdova y Luis Cordero is not permanent, and hours are from 9-18:30. A photo shows an artisan holding a sculpture of the Minnesota state bird (a mosquito) made of recycled building hardware.

Otras cosas –

Doctors at local hospitals say they are running out of medicine to Covid and other patients.

Titular – Sube combustible y paraliza tranporte (Fuel up and transport paralyzed) – See Thursday’s article in CHL for more details. In addition to urban buses, taxis, heavy tansport and mixtos have announced a work stoppage. <But maybe not taxis depending on which paragraph you’re reading.> Heavy trucks parked on av. De Las Américas near the ciudadela La Católica yesterday as a protest. <Better run out and stock up on toilet paper tomorrow.>

Faltan medicinas en las salas UCI (Medicines lacking in ICU wards) – Yesterday, doctors at the public hospitals complainted about the lack of sedatives and other special medicines to combat the Coronavirus in the ICU wards. Nationally, ICU beds are around 92% occupied with ICU beds for Covid patients in Cuenca public hospitals at 100% occupancy. A doctor at the “Vicente Corral Moscoso” hospital said they were substituting sedantes y relajantes (sedatives and relaxants – your words fo for the day) with less effective medicines. <I hope it doesn’t get to the point where doctors asking are if you’d rather have Scotch or gin in your IV.> Julio Molina, the Zone 6 Health Coordinator, said that they are putting all necessary efforts into supplying medicines and supplies, but part of the problem is that suppliers are not in a position to issue proformas (I think it’s like a proposal to supply a good.). While supplies are arriving, the hope is that the reduction of patients will continue. Molina called for better collaboration on the part of the citizenry.

Brigadas municipales proyectan vacunación para 153,000 personas (Municipal brigades plan vaccination for 153,000 people) – The Municipality is supporting the MSP’s vaccination process with 4 medical teams from the Hospital Municipal with which it hopes to vaccinate 153,600 citizens by 31/12. They have been allocated enough doses to vaccinate 73 to 90 people per day per team. The hospital has set up a respiratory triage area and also technological services such as Telmedicina and the Prime Doctor app to make appointments. It also added 3 ICU beds for treating Covid patients.

Persona con discapacidad es atracada y pierde trabajo (Disabled person is robbbed and loses job) – 70 year old Cesar Rodrigo Plaza Barreto, known as “Mochito” is 45% disabled and the special tricycle from which he sold encebollados outside the IESS apartments on calle Daniel Córdova y av. Solano was stolen. After losing his hand as a 5 year old child, he has done other work including shoe shining, selling newpapers, and for 30 years, making and selling encebollados. Plaza lives in Llacao and kept his tricycle in a garage on Tadeo Torres near the Colegio Benigno Malo. Burglars broke the padlock and stole the tricicle which was fitted with a gas tank, stove and cooking utensils. He is looking for help so that he can get back to work. If you can make a donation, call him directly at 099 435 1677.

Casi sin vacunas, inmunización irá a un paso más lento (With almost no vaccines, immunization will slow down) – Currently the country only has vaccines from Pfizer to administer 1st doses, and at least for this month, no more doses from Sinovac or AstraZeneca will be arriving due to an excess of international demand. The current government will slow down the rate of vaccinations since only the Pfizer vaccinations are coming in at the average weekly rate of 50,000 doses for 1st doses. There are 500,000 doses of Sinovac for 2nd doses.

So far, 1,024,000 people have received 1st doses, 265,000 have received 2nd doses and only 40% of seniors have been vaccinated. The Government has promised to have 6 million doses by mid-year and 20 million by the end of the year. The government has advanced $75 million which represents 20%of the amount needed for 20 million doses. The webpage Timetoherd had estimated Ecuador would achieve 70% of its population immunized by the end of 2021, but has revised that to 725 days. Because of an insufficiency of vaccines, the time between doses for Sinovac has been lengthened from 21 to 28 days, and for AstraZeneca, from 28 to 34 days.

Internacional –

Chile tendrá la primera Carta Magna paritaria del mundo (Chile will have the world’s Magna Carta with parity) – Chile is close to becoming the first country in the world to have a Magna Carta (constitution) written by an Asamblea with equal numbers of men and women. They will draft the new Constitution, which must then be endorsed in another plebiscite in mid-2022.

And that´s all for today so Hasta ? –

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.