Ecuador completes first day of massive weekend confinement

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The first day of the new massive confinement in Ecuador was fulfilled this Saturday, April 24, in a general way, although with exceptions established by the authorities. The strategy seeks to curb the Covid-19 contagion boom and alleviate the pressure on health care services.

Few vehicles and desolate streets were seen yesterday and today in the Ecuadorian capital, which only authorized the transit of health personnel, police, military, garbage collection personnel, vehicles for transporting food, medicines, and home delivery.

The state of emergency decreed in 16 of the 24 Ecuadorian provinces was applied due to the increase in the number of infections in these jurisdictions and an acute saturation in the hospital units.

Only a few pharmacies and authorized premises for home delivery of foodstuffs were operating. Some vaccination centers against Covid-19, were functioning, especially for those elderly who had an appointment to apply the doses.

Authorized cabs and domestic gas distribution vehicles also circulated in some neighborhoods of Quito, where the absence of people allowed seing some unusual landscapes, which remain anonymous in the days of the great hustle and bustle.

Police and municipal agents patrolled Quito’s avenues and stopped vehicles to verify that their drivers were authorized to circulate.

The state of emergency, which began Friday, will last until May 20 in the provinces of Azuay, Imbabura, Loja, Manabí, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Guayas, Pichincha, Los Ríos, Esmeraldas, Santa Elena, Tungurahua, Carchi, Cotopaxi, Zamora Chinchipe and El Oro.

Health authorities have justified the measure given the “accelerated contagion” and the dangerous presence of new variants of the coronavirus.

The curfew included in the state of exception will be applied from Monday to Friday with a nine-hour schedule, between 8 PM 5 AM; on weekends, the confinement will be absolute between 8 PM on Friday and 5 AM on Monday.

The restrictions will not apply to the health services, public security, strategic sectors of the economy, emergency road services, the export sector, basic services, food and medicine supply, media workers, diplomatic service, lawyers, and court personnel.

The state of emergency specifies that there will be free circulation of private vehicles during the hours outside the curfew, but public transportation must operate at 50 percent of its capacity. Travel to ports, airports and border crossings is permitted.

The vaccination process against Covid-19, which is underway, will not be interrupted.

According to a Ministry of Public Health report, Ecuador added this Saturday 1,448 new Covid-19 infections for an accumulated of 372,754 positives since the pandemic began to be registered in the country on February 29th last year.

The number of confirmed deaths due to the disease increased this Saturday to 13,085 deaths, 90 more than the previous day, to which 5,073 “probable deaths” with the disease were added, for a total of 18,158 deaths in the context of the pandemic.

The Andean province of Pichincha, whose capital is Quito, is the hardest hit of the 24 jurisdictions of this type in the country, having accumulated 130,512 infections, 463 more than the previous day.

Pichincha is followed by the coastal province of Guayas, whose capital is Guayaquil, with 48,821 positive cases of infection, 143 more than yesterday, Friday.

The governmental portal “Plan Vacunarse” stated that as of April 22, 486,524 people had been vaccinated with the first doses, and 188,896 had already received the second doses.

Ecuador has received 1.7 million vaccines from different pharmaceutical companies, such as the American Pfizer, the Chinese Sinovac, and the British AstraZeneca.

A new batch of 336,000 vaccines from the British pharmaceutical company is scheduled to arrive at Quito airport this Saturday to supply the vaccination plan.