Santiago de Chile has its first weekend of recce …

Santiago de Chile.The Santiago de Chile pandemic has never offered the postcards of other capitals with their empty streets and people confined to their homes. State support for the right-wing government Sebastián Piñera, which resulted in the distribution of boxes with food for a few months, loans which hopefully exceeded $ 400 and the benefit of companies to “suspend” labor contracts without paying for layoffs, has forced many Chileans to continue working in any way.

For this reason, the regression towards “phase 2” which entered into force Thursday morning was greeted with concern and surprise by the trans-Andean population. This is part of a five-step plan called “step by step” in which the government implements a series of deconfinement measures. Thus, “Phase 3”, which had started in most of the municipalities of Santiago on September 28, had to be interrupted, due to the increase in infections which are multiplying in the country, where 20,767 deaths have already been added, including suspected cases attributed to COVID-19.

Yesterday, the 10 thousand active cases in the country were exceeded for the second time in a row, a “barrier” which had been in place since the end of October. In fact, the arrival of the “second wave” is expected in January 2021. In the metropolitan area – as it is called the set of 52 municipalities in which the capital of Chile is divided – the figure has increased from 1,800 to 1900 cases in late November to 2565 on Friday. This is most likely due to the relaxation brought on both by the rise in temperature and by measures promoted by the government such as the installation of restaurant tables occupying the streets where cars previously circulated, with very little social distancing.

But also for relaxation of citizenship, stimulated by the low rate of contagion after the national holidays in September, permits to travel in the regions or the plebiscite of 25 October, where social interactions and street celebrations following the “Approve” triumph to change the 1980 Constitution, had not caused large increases in contagion.

This new context concretely forces what it was at the end of winter: confinement on Saturday and Sunday, ban on leaving the capital, obtaining temporary permits to carry out impostable procedures (and only one per weekend), closure temples, restaurants, gymnasiums, cafes and shopping centers with the exception of supermarkets.

Social gatherings and parties are also prohibited. Oddly enough, from Monday to Friday, the situation changes dramatically, allowing shopping malls or food centers to open normally, meetings can take place, and even schools that have resumed classes can continue.

101 inmates, semi-empty streets and growing poverty

Barely a weekend ago, the main avenues of Santiago were full of people taking advantage of the opening of shopping centers, open restaurants (and where one can talk without a mask), parks to go shopping. exercise and the feeling that it had already happened. worse, stimulated by the government and the media which even occupied large spaces with “panoramas” for family outings.

This morning, none of that. From the start, the police and military checked the drivers who left this morning, dismissing several who intended to go to the beach. And although the popular shopping centers such as the central market area or the communal fairs where fruit or vegetables are sold, were with the same influx of public as always, other areas of the center such as the Plaza de Armas or shopping centers have effectively represented containment.

On Saturday afternoon, 101 people were arrested for violating the imprisonment, as reported by Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado. “Auditing has an effect, of course, we not only want to audit people, but we also want people to integrate learning. It’s been a tough year, we know it, we know it’s a month very complex, but we strongly ask you to people who comply with the regulations, it is for the good of yourselves, it is for the good of our elders, it is for the good of our families ”, a he said.

The situation in Chile is worrying. While the World Bank predicts 800,000 new poor due to the pandemic, The tents set up in areas such as the central station or the forest park or Providencia are already part of the usual landscape of the city. The phenomenon was somehow camouflaged by the implementation of the second 10% AFP withdrawal (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones), which allowed millions of workers to use their own savings to survive in this pandemic. . Although, as was the case with the first withdrawal at the end of July of this year, the government and the business elite reluctantly accepted the measure: the Chilean system, implemented by the Pinochet dictatorship, allows companies that manage these sums to invest them without making the contributor who is the beneficiary of the profits.

A locked up Christmas?

This Thursday, December 17 alone, the government will conduct an assessment to decide what measures will be taken just for Monday, December 21 as Christmas approaches. Some municipalities can even progress and others not. So indicated The Minister of Health Enrique Paris who took the opportunity to accuse those who have “clandestine parties, without a mask, without social distancing, with heavy alcohol consumption” even if they are, in theory, prohibited. Indeed, any night of the week, especially in the areas of buildings that proliferate in municipalities like Santiago Centro or the central station, the music and the cries of the departments, in addition to the complaints in applications like Sosafe , suggest that there is particular optimism in the face of a pandemic and a process of mass vaccination which should not begin until the second half of 2021.

“Today and tomorrow are quarantine days, only people who have special permits can leave, the ideal is to stay at home, to make a sacrifice to have a good Christmas, to have a good New Year and, let’s hope, have a good summer. “I call back Paris

And he added: “I understand the merchants who think this is probably an attack on their performance, on their work, but if we don’t do it now, we’ll have a much stricter quarantine during the summer, or during the holidays. of the year, so be patient, invest in patience, invest in your activity, so that you can then develop your activity in the broad sense of the term ”.