[ad_1]
When walking through the Yungay, San Pablo and Mapocho neighborhoods, you can see why Santiago Today it is the commune with the most infections in the country: 1,294, according to the latest epidemiological report from Minsal.
Despite the quarantine, the movement on Av. San Pablo is like that of a normal day before the pandemic: open venues with bathroom products full of shoppers, open Chilean and Peruvian restaurants, lines at banks and in wholesale supermarkets and sidewalks full of street trade. In some corners there are a couple of military personnel who only limit themselves to observing the situation.
In the inner streets many people in street situations outside the churches, immigrants with children in the streets and men and women begging for alms.
We accompany the mayor Felipe Alessandri on a tour of this area, where he started a sanitation plan for cités and social condominiums yesterday.
All the communes that split the quarantine with Santiago decreased the figures significantly since the measure was applied, but their commune did not. What explains why it is so different?
I predicted this in March and sent a letter to the authorities that said “Santiago is going to lead cases of infection in the Metropolitan Region and in Chile.” And there he listed its characteristics, which are unique: we are the center of the region and the country where 2 million people converge daily in normal times, who come to work, to carry out a procedure, to collect their unemployment insurance, to take out their unique key; all the marches are in Santiago; We have 12 central university houses and all public officials work in Santiago.
Two weeks ago, the government called on public officials to gradually return to work in person. Are there conditions for you to return to work?
The President has clearly indicated this and we in the municipality have done that. Who can go back to work? The public official who does not have basic illnesses, who is not elderly, and who does not live or take care of a child with health problems. If there is little space in the office, two can come back first and the rest continue to telework. That is the descent that each distribution is perfecting over time. The public official who does not have a basic illness and can work with sufficient social distance, has to return to work, because the State is being required in times of emergency.
Sitting in the dining room of a neighbor of the Yungay Esperanza condominium, Alessandri lists other factors that explain the dramatic situation in his area: “We are the commune with the most immigrants in the country: 212 thousand residents, and many in an irregular situation, which has generated overcrowding … I invite you to walk a few blocks higher, where we can see that 20 people live in pieces of eight square meters.
After the social outbreak and in these pandemic months, the arrival of migrants has decreased …
But what will happen now … all of Latin America will face an economic crisis and Chile will always be an attractive destination to come. If a new migratory wave comes, like the one that occurred between 2012 and 2018, we will continue with the indignity that we can see today. In all these old houses in this neighborhood there is a Chilean who abuses illegal immigrants and leases pieces to 250 Lucas. Since they do not have a rut, they cannot apply for any social benefit and work daily in the street trade. So even though we have been in quarantine for eight weeks, they keep coming out because, if not, they are starving.
How do you intend to reverse this situation, because, at least according to the epidemiological report, there were more than 500 new cases in seven days?
Before answering, I add another fact: we are the commune with the youngest millennials and they often find it hard to obey the authority’s opinion and every day we meet stubborn people in the squares. I met with the Minister of Defense and the general in charge, to whom I asked for more control. After being locked up for seven weeks in an apartment, people need to get out and they began to relax because they saw that they were not supervised outside. Because, let’s be honest, out here (from the condominium with 175 apartments) there are no police officers or a military control.
More than 20 mayors of the RM request total quarantine in the region. What is your posture?
I think it is a mistake, because being quarantined is not a prize, it is a punishment. It is a punishment for the elderly, for the young, for the pet and for the merchant who cannot open his hairdresser, his store, his butcher … What we have to deal with is that hopefully no commune in the RM is quarantined , and for that we appeal to responsibility and control. I think that they (the mayors), well inspired, do not understand the concept … because the neighbors are not dying of coronavirus, they are starving me, because they cannot go out to work and cannot open their business. Here there is no false dichotomy between economy and health; health always comes first; but what the government has sought with these dynamic quarantines is to reactivate trade a little.
He told me that there are people who are starving to death …
Many people are feeling hungry. I have been a councilor since 2004 and I have been mayor for three years and never, never have I received so many emails asking for merchandise and promoting common pots. And not only of the most vulnerable people, but also of many married couples who lived with their children in a good apartment, each one had a downside with a salary of 600, 800 and a million pesos; and today the unemployment insurance is running out and the accounts, the rent and the dividend have to be paid, and they are starving.
[ad_2]
