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Well, I did it. I booked a flight back to the US to get a COVID-19 vaccine shot. Actually, two shots, three weeks apart. I had signed up for the vaccine in Florida, which is my legal residence, and really didn’t expect to see anything happen soon, as the entire vaccination program in the...
After one week, the Ministry of Health has decided to discontinue providing an Appendix that was meant to provide further insight into the daily Infographic Report. As we pointed out last week, there was little in the sense of new or valuable information in the Appendix provided. Two data points they did provide are...
Well, I’ve been in the US for a week, and I can’t say that it has been as enjoyable as I imagined it would be. Because frankly, I am mentally in what I can best describe as an alternate reality. Really, being back in the US is very odd for me this time. Perhaps...
Last week, the Mayor of Cuenca issued a letter to Ecuador’s two final Presidential candidates for the April 11th election. Pedro Palacios, Mayor of Cuenca, issued a statement on his official social media accounts to make requests to the two candidates who will contest the ballot: Andrés Arauz and Guillermo Lasso. Among the requests, he...
To acquire this type of housing, considered easy to mobilize and ranging from $ 10,000 to $ 15,000, you must have a space or land. In the last decade, containers have become a new architectural element in Ecuador, used to build, under a new concept, different spaces for real estate purposes. Among the main...
Since the beginning of the year, the epidemiological curve of the Ministry of Health graphs has registered an increase in cases, which has caused hospital centers to become saturated, mainly in Quito and Guayaquil, but also in other locations in the country as well. Given this, the cantonal and national COE issued restrictions for...
The Presidential Debate organized by the National Electoral Council (CNE) was held this past Sunday, March 21, 2021. The candidates to occupy the seat in Carondelet, Andrés Arauz, of the Unión por la Esperanza (Unes); and Guillermo Lasso, from the alliance of the Creando Oportunidades movement – Christian Social Party (Creo-PSC), both spoke about...
The restrictions due to COVID-19, as well as the lack of control of cases here, are causing several countries to block entry of those coming from Ecuador, in some cases regardless of vaccination or PCD test status. Over the last several months, the restrictions for entering countries throughout the world have increased. They are being...
Ayampe’s natural landscapes – strewn with rolling hills, healthy forests, and screaming birds – bear a certain resemblance to those settings that Jenica Brigham has as happy memories of her childhood in Hawaii, where she lived from the age of 3 until she was 20 years old. Because of this, when she discovered southern Manabi province a decade ago,...
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a rambling, thoughts off the top of my head column, but there are so many little ideas wigging inside my brain that I can’t quite scratch away, that I just have to let them out. Let me start with the election here, because it really is...
The current level of social inequality in Ecuador is now just slightly lower than it was in December 2010—a ten-year setback according to the latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) published this week. One of the parameters to measure social inequality is how income is distributed within a society. In Ecuador,...
When I was young, I used to love to play those scratch-off lottery tickets. My heart rate would actually go up when I was scraping off those little silver spots of foil (?), just the anticipation of winning something was almost worth the $1. [Now my heart rate goes up if I cross the...
Friends here keep asking me what I think about the future of Ecuador, with the likelihood that Andres Arauz will win the April 11th Presidential run-off election. All I can tell them is that from what I read, Arauz will return the country to the ways of Rafael Correa—and this means a return to...
The massacre in three prisons in Ecuador, which occurred on February 23rd, reflects “a high level of corruption in the prison system and the power of drug trafficking within and without,” says Colonel Mario Pazmiño, former director of intelligence for the army. The massacre left 79 dead in the prisons of Guayaquil (37), Turi...
On February 8th, President Lenín Moreno sent his first version of the bill for the Defense of Dollarization to the National Assembly. This bill would reform the Organic Monetary and Financial Code (Comyf). The President asked that this initiative be treated as an “Urgent Economic Law.” When the bill was submitted, the Ministry of...
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, public institutions have varied in their schedules and forms of care. Below, is a list of public entities with high user demand and the detail of their current form of care in Cuenca Internal Revenue Service (SRI) For a...
Last week, the Legislative Administration Council (CAL) of the Assembly sent the bill for the Defense of Dollarization back to the President because it had constitutional and legal errors. The corrected version of the text will be back in the hands of the Assembly this week. El Universo newspaper interviewed Verónica Artola, the manager...
In a late session yesterday, the National Electoral Council (CNE) cancelled the vote recount that had been agreed to between the two second place finishers in the February 6th election, and CNE President Diane Atamaint. The planned recount was to have started on Monday after a weekend of back-and-forth discussions between the three parties....
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: Updated for Tuesday, FEBRUARY 9, 2021 The numbers this week show signs of improvement, even though the rates of sampling and testing have fallen again. The rate of new cases is lower again for the second week in a row, going from 3.95% increase...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is “open” to adjusting the program with Ecuador with the new president emerging from the ballot, “if the government so wishes,” the director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the Fund, Alejandro Werner, said on Monday. “The Fund is always open to modifying programs,” Werner said in a video...
Ecuador heads to the polls this week to elect its next President (and Vice president and some Assembly members), in what is likely to be an historic outcome, moving the country either slightly to the right or firmly back into the far left that ruled during Rafael Correa’s 10 years as President. The most...
Well, Ecuador elects a new president this Sunday. But the odds are that no candidate will get enough votes in the first round for outright victory (there are 16 candidates!). So, there will be a run-off in April. Oddsmakers say it will likely be between Rafael Correa’s buddy Andrés Arauz and Lenin Moreno’s nemesis, Guillermo...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: Updated for Tuesday, January 27, 2021 Last week we shared information from the El Universo newspaper that outlined the rate with which the coronavirus was continuing to spread throughout the country. The numbers at that time were alarming, and there was little good news...
While it works on completing the processes to receive its certifications to fly, Ecuatoriana Airlines has set the month in which it will tentatively start operating in Ecuadorian territory: July. By July, the company expects to have its initial crews ready to begin its flights. The company will start hiring in April and training in May. The...
Tracking the spread and outcome of the coronavirus in Ecuador: Updated for Tuesday, January 19, 2021 This week, in addition to providing our summary, we are also including information reported by El Universo newspaper that has taken a look at things differently than how we have been tracking. They reported this week on the...
The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has reached an agreement with Ecuador for $3.5 billion in funding for economic reactivation, in exchange for Ecuador excluding China and its companies from a role in its telecommunications networks. Adam Boehler, the Chief Executive of the US development bank, signed the deal in an event...
Well, the day has finally arrived. The inauguration of a new President in the United States will happen tomorrow. Of course, what the day will look like is only known to a handful of people who a) are trying to make sure that it happens and that everyone is safe, or b) will do...
Last weekend, the National Electoral Council (CNE) held a mandatory presidential debate over two days, for the participation of 16 registered candidates for the February 7th elections. The debates took place on Saturday and Sunday evenings at the National Theater of the House of Ecuadorian Culture. The event was organized by the newspaper El Comercio,...
On January 5, 2021, Wilson Tenorio, President of the Guayas College of Physicians, urgently asked that flights from Europe be suspended due to the increase in cases on that continent from the new strain of the coronavirus detected in the United Kingdom. The request was also made due to the increase in cases sustained...