The cell phone of Márcia Cristina Franco, 55, dawned with messages this Wednesday (1st). There were texts and audios of terrified people asking if the party hall of the building where they live would close or if it would only be allowed to enter the elevator with a mask on their face.
“There’s that debate on WhatsApp”, joked the professional liquidator who manages four condominiums in the capital of São Paulo, Guarulhos and ABC.
The groups of condominium residents on the message app boiled after the news this Tuesday (31) that the Government of São Paulo has once again recommended the use of masks in closed environments in São Paulo’s municipalities.
The use of the protection item was no longer mandatory on March 17 because of the retreat in the new coronavirus pandemic in the state. But, with the increase in cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks, the Covid-19 Contingency Committee of the São Paulo government recommended the return of the use of masks in closed places.
“I spent today [quarta] asking for calm”, said the syndica. According to her, residents were having many doubts about whether they would be forced to wear a mask again in common places in their buildings, such as in elevators or gyms.
The atmosphere, according to her, was even more tense in a condominium in São Bernardo do Campo, because of a rumor that Mayor Orlando Morandi (PSDB) would again force people to wear a mask indoors.
In the city of ABC, as well as in the capital and in other municipalities in Greater São Paulo, the use of masks in these environments is just a recommendation.
But in condominiums managed by the liquidator’s company, for employees and service providers, however, having your nose and mouth covered is mandatory. “We are issuing a statement, this is the only rule we have put in place.”
Lawyer Rodrigo Karpat, a specialist in condominium law, said that as the government and mayors only recommended the use of masks, in theory, syndics cannot force their use.
The implementation of the restriction will depend on a decision in the assembly, but the trustee runs the risk of the case ending up in court, if a resident contests, he explained.
And it was the controversy that everything would close again that made the cell phone of economist Alexandre Prandini, 45, “a hell”, as he defined it. “How to get into the elevator was another recurring question,” he said, responsible for a company that manages 22 condominiums.
Fears of residents being forced to cancel parties scheduled for the hall also surfaced.
Despite the differences, he says he believes that there are more aware and alert people today. Prandini cites that, last week, residents of one of the places where he is the manager asked for a face-to-face condominium meeting to be held virtually, precisely because of the high number of people who had Covid.
Rafael Lotti, 44, a professional trustee who manages 12 condominiums in the capital and in Osasco, in the metropolitan region, also spent this Wednesday trying to calm down groups of residents, saying that their routine will not change, but that care is needed, because in In the last few days, he has received several reports of Covid cases in buildings.
“I’m trying to work on the individual awareness of each one, thinking about the collective, because today [quarta] We don’t have a law that forces people to wear a mask, it’s just a recommendation,” he said.
Lotti admitted that she does not participate in all the messaging app groups of the locations under her responsibility. “There are 1,104 apartments, imagine the difficulty of controlling so many wills”, she said. “Some people accept the idea [de usar máscaras] and others are completely against it.”
According to him, one of the condominiums managed by his company is discussing an amendment to the regiment so that anyone who fails to comply with health rules during pandemics is automatically punished, provided there is evidence.
This is the situation, that of punishing people, that takes the sleep of the syndic Cristiano Jair Silva, 43. During the pandemic, he said, between 30 and 40 residents of the building where he lives in Vila Ema, east side of São Paulo, were warned for not wearing masks. Others got fines.
“As a syndic, you only return the mask inside the condominium again if it is by law, not even in common areas”, he said.
More cautious, Milene Sininobivh, 47, the manager of a 16-story building in Indianópolis, in the south of São Paulo, used the condominium’s messaging app, on May 22, the messaging app to alert the group of residents about the need to regain protection against the new coronavirus.
“Good afternoon guys… unfortunately we have cases of covid coming back!! I ask you to wear masks again.. Let’s protect our family!”, he wrote in the condominium group. Two residents thanked her, saying she was right, and, at least in this virtual space, there was no controversy.
The decision to ask residents to protect themselves again was because two apartments had cases of Covid-19 in a few days. And because the husband himself contracted the disease when he returned from a trip recently.
“I never stopped wearing a mask here, as did my two daughters and my husband,” said the manager, who admitted to having been mocked by the younger residents of the building, which has many elderly people.
Biologist Cristina Jatobá, 55, who lives in the condominium, praised the message. “I only take off the mask when I enter the apartment,” she said.
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