Chile returns to almost total quarantine due to Covid-19 cases

About 14 million people in Chile, or nearly half of the 52 municipalities of Santiago de Chile, will return to full quarantine due to the covid pandemic. The restrictions will govern from this Thursday, March 25, due to the strong growth of cases in recent days, as announced by the government of Sebastian piñera.

“The cases continue to increase nationally, we must keep this in mind,” the Minister of Health said, Enrique Paris, after 6,155 new cases and 80 new deaths from the coronavirus have been reported in the past 24 hours. With these data, the country adds 938,094 confirmed infections and reaches 22,359 deaths.

According to data from World Health Organization, Chile is the sixth country with the most confirmed cases of coronavirus in Latin America.

Paris called on Chileans to comply with preventive measures: “We must maintain physical distancing, hand washing and the use of a mask,” he said. “We are starting a very complex week”, warned the manager, recorded Telam.

Despite high vaccination, Covid-19 cases increase in Chile

For its part, Paula Daza, Under Secretary for Public Health, indicated that the country is going through “a complex situation” in which it is necessary to “reduce mobility”.

To this end, he announced the suspension of the temporary authorization to travel on weekends and holidays from this Saturday, March 27. In this sense, he explained that they were suspending this permit for Chileans to stay at home and announced that there would be controls in the streets to enforce sanitary measures and respect the curfew, imposed from 22 hours.

“More than 2,100 medical summaries have been made and, among them, more than 1,700 to people and among them, more than 40% during the hours of curfew,” said the official. And asked: “We need people to reduce their trips and stay in the houses”.

Regarding the hospital crisis, the Under-Secretary for Health Networks, Alberto Dougnac, reported that 2,269 people are hospitalized in intensive care units, of which 1,973 are connected to mechanical ventilation.

The truth about Chile: vaccination record and return from quarantine

Vaccination in Chile

The Minister of Health of Chile indicated that “vaccinate 5,642,004 people with one dose”. Paris said that, despite the growth of cases, Chile is “in the first place of vaccination in the world, ahead of the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the United States”.

The official reiterated that on Sunday a new batch of two million Chinese Sinovac vaccines arrived in that country to continue the vaccination plan. With this arrival, he said, “we have completed 12 million doses of Sinovac” and added: “We will continue to receive more vaccines, as we have an agreement to receive 20 million in the first year and 20 million per year, for three consecutive years. “

In addition, he said they would continue to receive more US Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines and planned to be “close to receiving AstraZeneca in the future, thanks to the Covax deal.” In this context, he added: “We are working to access vaccines from Russia and CanSino”.