Peru Reopens Shopping Centers with Restrictions Closed for Months Over COVID-19 Spread

Women buy vegetables through a protective plastic due to COVID-19, in a street market in Barranco neighborhood, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, June 20, 2020.

Shopping malls in Peru are welcoming customers for the first time in just over three months.

Stores reopened Monday to half their normal capacity and limitations on time allowed for shopping in each store.

Shoppers were only allowed inside after a temperature check, and their shoes and hands were sanitized.

Until Monday, only supermarkets, pharmacies, and banks were allowed to open in shopping malls.

Street sellers, the so-called backbone of the informal economy in Peru, are upset they were not included in the arrangements to reopen business.

Peru's gradual reopening is taking place as the country remains one of the worst impacted nations by the coronavirus in Latin America, with just over 8,000 deaths and more than 254,000 infections.