Tangier, Bogotá, Manila… how big cities are reconfigured

It hovers over millions of heads. The threat of reconfiguration has been carried out in several major world cities, affected by increases in contamination by the coronavirus.

For the health authorities, the goal is the same in all these cities: to remove any risk of new outbreaks of cases. But the methods of reconfinement differ.

Tangier entirely in a bell

Tangier had been deconfigured like most of the big cities of Morocco, two weeks ago. Faced with the appearance of several clusters, the health authorities decided Sunday evening to put several districts in "quarantine". As the Challenge.ma site recalls, 328 confirmed cases of contamination have been recorded in the city over the past five days, including 61 on Sunday July 12, 2020.

Finally, on Monday, the authorities extended the measure to the entire city. Concretely, since July 13 at 1 p.m., public transport has been suspended, cafes, shopping centers, markets and public spaces closed, and controls have been tightened, so that residents only leave their homes in cases of "extreme necessity" , said the Interior Ministry in a statement. Travel within Tangier is subject to "an exceptional authorization issued by the local authorities", according to the same source. Such authorization is also required to leave the city.

A decision rather difficult to accept for the inhabitants. "A loved one had to go to Rabat this morning to be operated on, but had to cancel her appointment," laments a Tangierois questioned by the local news site h24info. “We would have liked to be informed in advance, which would make it possible not to fall into this kind of situation. And again, there, we don't even know when this confinement will end, ”he continues.

Could other Moroccan cities follow the same path? In Casablanca, where 3 million inhabitants live, we are not yet talking about reconfiguration. But images of crowded beaches and waterfront establishments this weekend prompted authorities to close several businesses on the ledge for failing to comply with sanitary rules.

Containment by neighborhoods in Bogotà

Colombia, which fears a peak of the epidemic, handed over 3.5 million people on Monday, mainly in Bogotá. The capital concentrates a third of the more than 15,000 cases of Covid-19 confirmed in the country since March 6.

As a result, until August 23, strict confinement of fourteen days will be imposed in turn on eight districts: Ciudad Bolívar, Chapinero, Santa Fe, Rafael Uribe, San Cristóbal, Usme, Los Mártires and Tunjuelito.

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On the same model as the confinement in March, the inhabitants must stay at home and only the stores of first necessity remain open. "However, on the first day of strict quarantine, the streets of these eight areas continued to see people who, for one reason or another, broke the rule," local newspaper El Spectator noted on Tuesday. . In addition, the sale of alcohol will be prohibited during weekends.

In reunión con la mesa de empresarios socializamos la solicitud que le hicimos al Gobierno Nacional para decretar la Cuarentena Por la Vida estricta para todo el Valle de Aburrá, del viernes 17 al lunes 20 de julio. Tenemos autorización de @Minsalud y esperamos de @Mininterior. pic.twitter.com/wzHrQ173QJ

"We have taken these measures to pass the peak (of contamination)," said the mayor, a peak expected for the next few weeks. According to Claudia Lopez, in recent months, the authorities have tried to postpone this phase, but the "time to confront it" has come. All the inhabitants of Bogotà have already undergone strict confinement from March 20 to April 27.

In addition, in the Aburrá valley, the central core of which is Medellín, the health authorities are considering confinement for a few days. They could confine the population of the valley from July 17 to July 20, to avoid rallies on the occasion of the country's national holiday on the 20th.

Navotas still open to workers

The Philippine city of nearly 250,000 inhabitants, located in the agglomeration of the giant capital of Manila, will close from July 16, and for two weeks.

According to CNN Philippines, the mayor said residents of Navotas will be allowed to leave if they work outside the city. Likewise, non-residents who work there will be allowed to enter during the lockout period. The delivery of goods outside Navotas, with the exception of food deliveries, will be permitted.

138 million people reconfigured in India

It is the largest in number: more than 13 million inhabitants of the big city of Bangalore and its region, in the south of India, enter Tuesday evening in a reconfinement of nearly ten days to slow the spread. of the new coronavirus.

After having imposed a brutal confinement on a national scale at the end of March, India lifted the latter at the beginning of June but local reconfigurations are multiplying across the country of South Asia, where the epidemic is still raging.

In the wake of Bangalore, the large state of Bihar, at the other end of the country, in the north, announced the reconfiguration of its some 125 million inhabitants, from Thursday and for two weeks, in order to curb the coronavirus epidemic. "The Bihar government has decided to hold it for two weeks from July 16 to July 31," tweeted the deputy chief minister of state, Sushil Kumar Modi, adding that the precise directives would be published later.

California "restrictions"

We are not yet officially talking about reconfiguration. But California, one of the main centers of the epidemic in the United States, announced Monday the enlargement to the whole state of the closing of bars, indoor dining rooms, cinemas, zoos and aquariums.

In Los Angeles, as in about thirty counties, the return to restrictions also involves the closing of a series of public places and shops - including offices, shopping centers, hairdressers and places of worship.

The 600,000 pupils in the city also learned on Monday that they would not return to school in mid-August as planned but would attend distance courses until the health situation improved.

Priority jobs in Buenos Aires

In the Argentine capital and its periphery, the reconfinement is soon complete. From July 1 to 17, 14 million people could simply go to food stores and banks. All the others, more than 70,000, closed for at least 15 days. Travel in transport is limited to "essential professions". According to France Info, 54 priority jobs have been identified. Jogging has also been banned, and children can only go out on weekends.