Update on our Quarantine in Quito and Covid-19

Things have changed for us in Quito, from our last post Update on our Quarantine and Banana Bread

Here in Quito we are still under Marshall Law but the hours have been extended, the Pico y Placa continues. The excellent news is that the situation in The Guayas Region is not as bad as it was before. Jim’s hypothesis is that they probably reached herd immunity by now. But in Quito the cases are rising, and it is getting very depressing now. We are tired of not being able to go the places we would love to go. We have been very cautious and not ignoring the fact that we are in Yellow code which means still not free to roam as we were used to. This is upsetting some people seem to think because we are not in Red code anymore, somehow the virus has vanished, and they are immune to it.  I have been going grocery shopping only, and my last month’s visit was surprisingly not what I expected. This last time I didn’t have to wait for hours to enter the store. I stood there for about 10 minutes, had to get sprayed with some sort of disinfectant that to this day we don’t know what it contains. The additional thing was that this time they took my temperature before they allowed me to enter.

People had enough of the lock down; they are tired, and they are breaking the rules. We wonder if that is the primary reason to why we are in Yellow code now; it was either somehow established by the government or they would have to live with the consequences of people needing to go out. The situation in South America differs greatly from first world countries. People have to leave the safety of their home to buy food, many families don’t have a refrigerator, so that storing food is not an option. Many other families don’t have as much money saved if any at all, therefore they have to go out to work risking getting the virus and bring it home. In Peru people have been saying that they rather die from the Virus than of hunger. The realities are distinct, one rule can’t apply to all even though they have been trying. And, of course, there is the group of people that don’t care about the virus or to follow rules. They are oblivious of what is going on, and of the consequences their actions might bring to them and their families. Furthermore, people seemed to have forgotten the Virus. The fact that we were in lockdown doesn’t mean the virus went away during this time. The Virus hasn’t been destroyed or disappeared, on the contrary we hid ourselves instead of facing the Virus, hence it is still out there.

Covid-19 has brought lots of changes to the world, and that is a fact. We have been adjusting to new government requirements, school, and work. Socialization has changed to where; I don’t know if we will ever go back to the way we were before the pandemic. And this is also affecting us, we cannot do all the travel we have planned. Furthermore, we might not be able to publish our posts as planned, because these involved traveling. We don’t want to encourage any traveling until it is safe to do so. Third world countries have been hit the hardest, in part for the lack of resources; medical and financial. South America has a lot to offer, but hospitals are not prepared nor equipped to handle an uncertain number of patients. Even if travel resumes to almost back to normal there is so much to consider that we rather wait and make sure the countries we visit can handle emergencies if they might arise.

Therefore, we like to inform our readers that we are taking a vacation in August; we are planning to come back after this time. But we will shift our posts accordingly. We will wait and see what takes a course in the world before we resume our regular posts. In the meantime, you can follow us on our social media. When we come back as things develop we will publish posts accordingly, and most likely will have recipes, and we will continue with our book club as previously plan for this 2020.

Let’s all keep safe and hope for the best!

Other links:

Update on our Quarantine in Quito

Quarantine Update and Bring on the Board Games!

Do connect with us:

ResearchGate: James M. Wise 

Author´s page: James M. Wise

Photography page: JamesM.Wise.com 

Author´s page: Yanira K. Wise

South America seems to refuse to show its inexhaustible creative force.