Medellin Tests 3 Types of Liberated Shopping Malls Starting May 25

Medellin Mayor Daniel Quintero announced May 22 via his Twitter account that three different types of malls will be opened to the public here — under strict biosafety protocols — starting Monday, May 25, as a run-up to the planned reopening of more malls starting June 1.

According to the Mayor, the three shopping malls – Oviedo (Poblado), La Frontera (Medellin-Envigado border) and Gran Plaza (downtown) — will enable people to re-experience mall shopping, banned since start of the March quarantine.

However, strict biosafety controls will be enforced to avoid Covid-19 infections.

Besides mandatory use of masks and physical distancing by all employees and all shoppers, the biosafety protocols also will include disinfection stations, body-temperature-takings, data capture and limits on numbers-of-people at points-of-entry.

Personal data including cedula numbers and cell-phone numbers will be captured electronically in order to enable health officials to implement contact tracing and — if necessary — order individual quarantines in case of discovery of any Covid-19 infected person that might have come in contact with other shoppers or employees during the day of entrance into the mall.

Colombia’s new national biosafety protocol for shopping malls also limits total-people-access to 30% of capacity, so Medellin will follow those rules as well.