A days before Christmas, malls look full and the streets register important tacos

Full shopping malls and a high flow of vehicles and people through the city. That’s the picture at the beginning of Christmas week, A time when the streets are traditionally packed with shoppers, only this year the pandemic poses new risks.

According to the Traffic Control Operational Unit of the Ministry of Transportation, travel times increased in various communes. The areas with the highest increases in travel during the morning rush hour were Cerrillos (61%), El Bosque (35%), Maipú (10%) and San Miguel (7%), between 6:00 and 10 hours.

According to the same entity, some of the main congestion points identified in Santiago were Route 5, between San Bernardo and the Costanera Norte; Alameda, between Las Rejas and Manuel Rodríguez (especially in the Meiggs shopping district); Lonquén Road, up to Vespucio (Plaza Oeste sector); the perimeter of La Vega Central and Patronato; Apoquindo, from El Golf to Manquehue; and Vicuña Mackenna, between San José and A. Vespucio. Almost all, near shopping centers.

The company Meter also reported a increase in the number of passengers compared to last Monday 14, between 6:00 am and 4:00 pm: this monday they traveled 931,993 people, equivalent to a 24% more.

The Minister of Transport, Gloria Hutt, ratified that “There was an increase in mobility during the weekend as in recent days”. He added that it is necessary that, taking into account the days to come, the population “respects the provisions imposed by the health authority, so that we can reduce infections.”

Felipe Alessandri, Mayor of Santiago, affirmed that commercial sectors such as Meiggs had important agglomerations and in the historic center of the capital “In normal times we receive two million people a day (before the pandemic), and now, before Christmas and with a weekend quarantine, the flows have increased.”

Therefore, he specified that the municipality has applied a demanding sanitation plan of public spaces and Christmas fairs. There, masks have been delivered and the temperature has been taken.

In addition, the Municipality of Providencia and the health authority carried out an inspection of the protocols applied in the Costanera Center deck (use of mask and gauges in the premises). The Regional Ministerial Secretariat of Metropolitan Health (Seremi) reported that opened a summary to the company for not having conditions of social distancing for customers and did not have boundaries within the mall. The fines can reach $ 51 million. In Talcahuano, meanwhile, the mall El Trebol Square it had to close temporarily, so that no more people entered.

Carlos Melo, An academic from the U. San Sebastián and former Undersecretary of Transport, stated that one should “avoid going out”, especially to supermarkets and shopping centers during peak hours, especially on December 23 and 24.