RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Rio de Janeiro City Hall has extended until next Friday, April 9, the tougher restrictive measures, adopted since last Friday (March 26), to reduce the risk of infecting the population with Covid-19.
Schools in the municipal public system will be back in operation from Monday, April 5 only for administrative activities and, on the 6th, for teaching preschoolers and first and second graders, considered essential for children’s development by the municipal secretary of Education, Renan Ferreirinha. “Literacy is the most challenging time to be done remotely,” he said. These grades depend more on face-to-face teaching, and the schools will follow strict sanitary protocols.”
As of April 5, non-essential public administration bodies will also start working again. On the 9th, the city will return to the rules that were in force before the tougher measures were adopted, with the return of commercial and service activities.
Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor Eduardo Paes explained that the loosening of the measures, scheduled to take effect on the 9th, was decided given the decrease “and a certain balance” in people’s identification curve signs of contamination in the health network.
Services
Paes explained that the imposition of restrictions was based on data from the moving average of deaths and hospitalizations. But as the deaths reflect people who became infected 20 days earlier, on average, the city hall started to observe the number of attendances in the health and emergency network. He stated that, from the epidemiological health point of view, the good news is that, “for the first time in a few weeks, we started to see this number stabilize. We are optimistic and hopeful that, over the next few days, this number will continue to stabilize and even fall.”
Paes commented that this number offers predictability, which is fundamental for decision-making. If this number had fallen further, he admitted that the restrictions could be reduced as early as the 5th.
On the other hand, the mayor assured that the municipal government’s decisions are based on scientific data. “What matters is the preservation of lives.” According to him, the data is already the most immediate result of the restrictive measures adopted last week.
Help for beach vendors and soccer
Facing the continuity of the closing of the beaches, the Rio de Janeiro mayor affirmed that the aid paid to the street vendors who work on the sand and sidewalks of the shoreline would be increased to R$500.
About soccer games, he indicated that they might take place as of the 9th, but without any public presence. “The tendency, in this period, is that things get better,” added Paes.
Source: Agencia Brasil