The tourism sector, which expects a similar influx of people on the December holiday, fears that events will be restricted. Doctors ask not to relax measures.
The more than 1,100 agglomerations registered by the ECU911 in the last five-day holiday worry the country’s doctors, who ask the authorities to carry out more controls in massive events to prevent a re-outbreak of COVID-19 infections.
“The current rate of vaccinated in the country is above 65%, with two doses, but we cannot stop having biosecurity measures, such as distancing and the use of a mask, because we have had to sacrifice vaccination of minors, when we have 10 or 15% of young adults who do not want to be immunized, “says Dr. Wilson Tenorio, president of the Guayas College of Physicians.
Precisely young people, the majority, attended concerts in Santa Elena, Azuay and El Oro, organized in some cases by sectional governments, where many were devoid of masks and without the due distancing that, for example, is observed in stadiums of soccer.
By resolution of National Emergency Operations Committee (COE)From October 30 concerts can be held in order to promote tourist and economic reactivation in the country.
The problem, doctors say, is that it has become clear from the mass events of the last holiday that not all protocols have been taken into account.
2.3 million people mobilized during the last holiday
The guidelines for public shows (in which football is included) dictate that these must be developed in open spaces or with open roof where you can control the suggested capacity 60%. The organizers must guarantee mechanisms of ticket presale with identification and as a sales requirement, the vaccination certificate or a negative PCR test must be required.
In addition, the requirements provided by the Police Intendancies must be met, as well as those provided by the competence of the autonomous decentralized cantonal and metropolitan governments, regulation and control of the use of public spaces that are developed in each territorial district.
Juan Zapata, president of the national COE and director of the ECU911, says that the non-use of the mask is stipulated as an infraction in the ordinances of the decentralized autonomous governments, but in many cases the events are organized by the municipalities themselves. “The controls are not 100%,” he lamented.
More than 1,100 crowds were on the holiday
The official considers that it is the responsibility of the organizers of mass events to reserve the right of admission for those who do not comply with the biosafety guidelines, and issues a warning: The COE’s provision to allow mass events will be subject to permanent evaluation shape the vaccination plan and the epidemiological situation of the country. That is, if there is a significant regrowth, the events will be canceled.
And it is something that the tourism sector fears, which expects a similar influx of public on the December holiday, at the end of the year.
Juan Pablo Vanegas, president of the Azuay Chamber of Tourism, who estimates that visits to Cuenca easily doubled the 45,000 who arrived on the previous holiday, on October 9, considers that one of the key factors by which the third The country’s most populous city attracted so many visitors was the holding of massive events.
The economic reactivation was felt in other provinces such as Santa Elena, Manabí, Tungurahua or El Oro. At the national level, the holiday injected more than $ 70 million into the national economy, according to the Ministry of Tourism.
But at what cost, in terms of health, would the economic reactivation be achieved? Once again, there has been a movement of relatives seeking to admit their patients to hospitals due to the recent contagion of COVID. And it is still too early to know the incidence of this last holiday and the crowds.
“We have an increase in cases in some provinces. In Guayas, where we only have 55% of the immunized population, there are serious cases in the Guasmo sentinel hospital, four new cases in the ICU here and 10 in Manabí ”, says Dr. Tenorio.
“We must strengthen vaccination in the age group of young adults. There are places where they have not been immunized, we must improve this inequity ”, suggests the doctor.
The increase in confirmed cases after a holiday with respect to the trend before the holiday is a reality. In the four days prior to the break for the independence of Guayaquil, which ran from October 8 to 10, the country registered up to 250 cases in one day. After the holiday, the Ministry of Public Health recorded daily increases of up to 631 cases, as happened on October 12.
The delta variant
“Most likely, infections will increase”, warned before the start of the holiday Paúl Cárdenas, a researcher at the Institute of Microbiology of the San Francisco de Quito University (USFQ).
It was based on an additional factor for which health authorities and specialists insist that we must not lower our guard, especially on holidays: the presence throughout the country of the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 and its subvariants. , whose transmission capacity is higher than the other types, and which has been identified in 75% of the cases analyzed in recent weeks.
Almost 100,000 vehicles left Guayaquil to the beaches of Guayas and Santa Elena
“It has some mutations that are related to the fact that the contagion window of infected people is longer, that is, people are contagious for much longer, having a high viral load in the upper respiratory tract. And it seems that this virus sticks better to the human receptor, ”explained Cárdenas.
This doctor assesses the level of vaccination in the country to face the pandemic. “Most people who are vaccinated, if they become infected, will have a mild illness and will not require hospitalization and that is important to take into account.”
However, he says that we must be aware that the pandemic is not over yet. “We have to continue taking care of ourselves above all for those people who are more susceptible to serious diseases, those of the elderly, with cancer, diabetes, kidney problems.” (I)
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