Why Chile is going through its worst time of COVID-19 infections despite its successful vaccination plan

The success of the Chilean vaccination program does not yet seem to translate into control of the coronavirus pandemic. Yes indeed it is demonstrated by the high contagion figures that exceeded 7 thousand per day and, as a result, they have saturated beds in intensive care units in most of the country.

Since the start of the Chilean vaccination plan on February 3, only good news has delivered this process: the country is one of the best on the planet when it comes to coronavirus vaccination, applied 9 million doses to its population, and 3 million people are already vaccinated against the disease. Clearly a successful development.

To the above, it must be added a new arrival of 180,200 vaccines from the Pfizer-BioNTech laboratory took place yesterday, Wednesday, adding a total of 1,284,075 doses of this type in the country, while 12 million Sinovac drugs have been distributed in Chile following the arrival of a sixth Asian shipment.

However, the last few weeks have not gone hand in hand with the good results of the vaccination.

What we call “the Chilean paradox”, resulted in a good vaccination campaign, but that has been overshadowed by high infections and hospitalizations for the coronavirus, in addition to the establishment of quarantines which will have more than 14 million people in strict confinement from this Thursday.

For expertsChile is going through its second wave, which obviously was worse than the first. It was only last weekend that the highest peak of infection recorded since the start of the pandemic was reached: 7,084 cases were detected, while 172 deaths were recorded on Tuesday, March 18, the highest figure to date.

Wednesday’s report details that Chile has recorded 36,054 active cases, in addition to 947,783 infections in total, 22,402 deaths, 2,348 hospitalized patients and 2,047 mechanically ventilated.

All of the above, according to this Thursday’s ICovid report, maintains that nationally there is a 9% increase in the number of new cases, while in the last four weeks the number has risen to 69.8%. The text adds that the the proportion of occupancy of intensive care units by patients with coronavirus rose to 67.2% as of March 23.

The medical community believes that Chile has never fully mastered the pandemic, This is how the Chilean Society of Epidemiology warned last November, through its president, María Paz Bertoglia. “Unfortunately in Chile, as in many regions of the world, this pandemic is not under control”He also warned to prepare “for what is to come”.

Added to this is the relaxation of health standards by the government at the beginning of the summer., extend vacation permits. Until the beginning of March, the authorities had approved 4032758 license of this type, which focused on three regions of the country: Valparaíso, Coquimbo and La Araucanía. All of these regions are now in quarantine.

The signs of relaxation have also spread to other areas, such as the celebration of Masses in churches. After the government’s approval for the celebration of services, the ratification of the Supreme Court of Justice is added to carry out these meetings even in total confinement. All this thanks to the commemoration of Holy Week.

The strictest quarantines begin

This Thursday, massive quarantines began in Chile to try to stop, in some way, the contagion of the coronavirus. There are 14 million people in total under this measure, which means 69% of the national population is locked out.

In the metropolitan area alone, 38 of its municipalities woke up in quarantine, or about 6.2 million people from Santiago.

“It is a gigantic effort that we must make and we have said on several occasions that the quarantine is painful, difficult, but given the advance of viral circulation, we must take these measures taking into account people’s health, ”said Minister of Health Enrique Paris.

This number of people confined is the highest recorded since the start of the pandemic compared to last year’s records. From July 14 to 27, around 10,826,730 people entered quarantine.

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