Chile admits appreciable errors in a vacuum …

The Chilean government has admitted that ten people who initially received the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech received the second dose from Chinese laboratory Sinovac. It is an unprecedented episode whose consequences are still unknown. In addition, a six month old baby received Sinovac vaccine although it is not recommended for children under 16 years of age. These errors in the vaccination campaign come as part of the great development that has enabled Sebastián Piñera’s government to reach the goal of vaccinating five million Chileans with at least one dose. The country is reporting the highest number of critically ill patients in the entire pandemic amid a worrying second wave.

“Obviously We regret that this error occurred during the vaccination of ten people in the municipality of San Bernardo (south of Santiago), but we specify that these are specific cases“said the Minister of Health Enrique Paris at a press conference. Paris explained that these people will be vaccinated again with the dose of Pfizer that corresponds to them, but clarified that it will not be immediately but within 21 days. In order to avoid criticism, the minister assured that these types of situations “are happening all over the world and have happened in other campaigns”, and said those affected “are not in danger”.

The head of the Health portfolio admitted that this week another mistake was made when A nurse inoculated a six-month-old baby in the southern town of Villarica with the product Sinovac, the use of which is only permitted in adults. “The nurse who made this mistake quickly informed the infant’s mother of what had happened, and although the situation was serious from the point of view of the error, by no means was it serious for the baby. children’s health, because it is a vaccine with a killed virus, ”explained Paris.

The Chilean Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday that 3,088 intensive care beds are occupied by coronavirus cases, the highest number in the entire pandemic. More precisely, 2,133 of them correspond to intensive care units (ICU) whose occupancy has increased in recent weeks as part of the second wave of covid-19 that is hitting the country. Currently there are a total of 188 critical beds available in the country.

To alleviate the hospital burden and be able to meet the increased demand for patients suffering from problems derived from the coronavirus, Chile’s Assistant Secretary for Assistance Networks Alberto Dougnac on Tuesday announced the suspension of elective surgeries in 11 of the country’s 16 regions. The measure, which will come into force on Friday, excludes surgeries the delay of which involves a serious risk to health or which may generate serious functional sequelae, as well as operations carried out on pediatric patients.

Minister Paris said that Many new hospitalized are young people who, by age group, have not yet accessed the vaccine on schedule. The country completed the vaccination of the entire population at risk, made up of five million people, on Tuesday. “Ensuring vaccines for all Chileans has been an extremely difficult and challenging task, but we have accomplished it”, celebrated the president Sebastian piñera. Chile is the fourth country in the world with the most people vaccinated (over 36 percent of the population) and the fastest vaccinating country, with 1.4 daily doses per 100 inhabitants.

The pandemic, however, continues to rage in this South American country. In view of the worsening of the situation following the southern summer holidays, authorities have decided to tighten measures in the capital and other parts of the country, decreeing quarantines for weekends in some places and full lockdowns in others. The health minister was against full quarantines, which so far do not affect the city of Santiago during working days, but said they could not be completely ruled out.

“Full quarantine is not the answer at all. We said if people don’t have a way to live or eat and don’t have access to credit cards, where are they going to get money? money to live?. I can’t rule anything out, you can never say that in medicine, but that’s not the solution, ”said Paris.

On Wednesday, the Health portfolio confirmed 4,395 new cases of covid-19. With this figure, the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic in Chile amounted to 905,212. Regarding deaths, 27 deaths were recorded, bringing the total number of victims to 21,816.