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The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, rejected for the moment making modifications to the restrictions that trade has during Phase 2 of the government’s Step by Step plan.
This, after the unions of the sector requested an exception to be able to operate without all the restrictions that they have since Thursday in the Metropolitan Region, in particular that they are allowed to open on weekends, to which are added the suggestions that they had made the Minister of Economy, Lucas Palacios, who announced on Wednesday that they were precisely in talks with Minsal.
“We are not going to make any changes at the moment. We want to work together with the Minister of Economy and for that we have set a coordination meeting to refine these types of decisions. But at the moment there is no definite change, “said Paris in the middle of the national balance on the health crisis by Covid-19. The minister said that these measures take place in the context of a rise in the positivity of PCR tests and that the situation in the Metropolitan Region is critical.
However, despite the fact that the Minister of Health put down the aspirations of commerce, the Undersecretary of Labor, Fernando Arab, recalled that stores can extend their operating hours by two more hours for 9 days within the 15 days prior to Christmas.
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“It will help us to mitigate the crowds of people who buy in the store during this time and that is so intensive during this time of year,” said the undersecretary at La Moneda.
Faced with the statements of the Minister of Health, the president of the National Chamber of Commerce (CNC), Manuel Melero, said that although “the minister based his opinion on the indices that he described as worrying in the Metropolitan Region regarding the progress of the Covid, we believe that the closing of the trade is a mistake ”. However, he added that “the minister has his reasons, I do not want to argue with him.” Regarding the requests of the trade, he pointed out that “if he has not considered it acceptable, it is necessary to accept it no more.”
On the other hand, he says it helps that the operating hours are extended by two more hours. “This is not for now, this is in the law. Always the 9 days before Christmas, the trade can unilaterally extend its working days, it has always done so and now it is going to do it with even greater reason, because it is a way to help prevent so many crowds from occurring ”, he indicates.
For his part, Carlos Soublette, general manager of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce (CCS), commented that “there has been no detected source of contagions in the commerce, but it is chosen to make and continue allowing elections, allowing street commerce to operate and forcing agglomerations in the week and in illegal trade ”.
