Chile has for the first time exceeded 8 thousand infections in …

Chile this Friday for the first time exceeded the threshold of 8 thousand daily cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. 8,112 new infections have been recorded, in a country which from Monday will close its borders and tighten restrictions on the movement of its inhabitants.

In the past 24 hours, 93 deaths have been recorded. Until, Chile has a total balance of 1,011,485 infected and 23,421 deathss. In addition, intensive care unit occupancy also peaked, with 2,804 cases. There are hospital units which in some cases reach 95% occupancy and 169 intensive care beds remain across the country.

“The variation in nationally confirmed new cases is 11% and 29% over the past 7 and 14 days, respectively,” said Health Minister Enrique Paris. The positivity rate (the number of Covid-19 infections detected per 100 PCR tests) was 10.7% nationally in the past 24 hours and 12% in Santiago.

These data are far from the 5% that the World Health Organization recommended to keep for two consecutive weeks to consider the pandemic under control. “It is important that citizens do not forget that they must maintain self-care measures and respect the sanitary cords set up for this Easter weekend,” added Minister Paris.

On a national level, Los Ríos region has the highest current incidence rate per 100,000 population, while the regions with the largest increase in new confirmed cases in the last seven days are the metropolitan region, Valparaíso, Maule and Arica.