This Monday, the Defense Minister, Walter Martos, assured that an increase in the hours of curfew is under evaluation in certain regions of the country where there is a sustained increase in cases of contagion. The end, he pointed out, would be to mitigate the advance of Covid-19 in these departments of Peru.
«We are coordinating with the cabinet, the premier and the president, and taking information from the Prospectiva group to see if some measures are adjusted in a targeted way, in some regions such as increasing the time of the curfew. It has not risen in some regions that are at the peak of the pandemic. The restriction on Sunday continues [in those areas] and maybe one more day can be implemented based on the analysis made with the regional authorities», emphasized the head of the MINDEF.
Arequipa
The region has been one of the hardest hit after Lima, Loreto, and the north of the country, for which the head of said portfolio affirmed that the strict quarantine is no longer viable or healthy for the economic reactivation.
“Returning to a strict quarantine at this time is not the most convenient for the country that is reactivating economically in the different phases and progressively. Imagine a small company that has made a loan to a bank to reactivate its business and now that we are closing again it is counterproductive”, Walter Martos told a local outlet.
The ‘White City’ in figures
Arequipa has a total of 10,476 cases and an official total of 570 deceased. The desperation has become evident to the point where experts and several doctors in the country’s second capital warn that hospitals are not enough, which would mean a total collapse of the health system in the region.