Former Chilean Health Minister Says COVID-19 Delta Variant “Has Become a Good Person”

Former Chilean Minister of Health has sparked new controversy in the country after making sure that the Delta variant of the coronavirus “has become a good person” due to the low lethality of this virus.

Everything was born in the last hours when health authorities reported that Chile had recorded 2,300 cases of the Delta variant, and that 82% of these infections were community-based.

According to Under Secretary for Public Health Paula Daza, “We had a Delta variant all over the country. There are active cases in all regions, except in the region of Magallanes “, and that “over 60% of cases are people aged 15 to 44. They are young people, that is why the call to take care of themselves ”.

Faced with this reality, the former Minister of Health Jaime Mañalich decided to participate in this debate, and assured that “We are talking about a variant which has a lethality of less than 1%, 0.8%” and that for this very reason “The Delta variant, using a word that made me very famous and has been criticized a lot, seems to be a better fit.”.

Jaime Mañalich is a Chilean doctor and politician with a long career. He was Minister of Health from June 13, 2019 to June 13, 2020, date on which he resigned from his post due to the consequences of the first wave of coronavirus in Chile. After his departure, he was replaced by the current head of the health portfolio, Enrique Paris.

Words in this tone of Jaime Mañalich are not new. In March 2020, when the coronavirus entered Chile, Mañalich said he considered “Completely senseless and useless” the total quarantine decreed by a group of mayors.

And faced with that, he argued for the first time “What if this virus mutates into a milder form? And it actually only produces a cold, like most old coronavirus cases. What if the virus mutates and becomes a good person? This is another scenario ”.

Mañalich’s style at the start of the pandemic sparked a series of criticisms against him. For example, for Rafael González doctor in physics and professor at the Universidad Mayor “when a Minister of Health gives so many statements detached from scientific evidence, and having for the first time a ministry of science, we, the scientists, would have expected a better positioning of science in this emergency ”.

These days the former Minister of Health is preparing his candidacy for the Senate Chilean representing the metropolitan area.

A possible increase in cases for Chile

For Jaime Mañalich Chile was the victim of “a second wave, produced by a mutation, a genetic change, which was the Gamma variant, from Brazil, and who arrived in Chile in January of this year and this produced a second very violent outbreak ”.

However, in the face of the spread of the virus, Delta Mañalich said that “All global evidence suggests we should experience a third epidemic for the Delta variant ”.

What attracts the attention of the former minister in both cases is that “having already been in community circulation for almost nine weeks, that is to say that we were infected inside the Chile, from the Delta variant, this epidemic was as mild as “, because “With eight weeks into the previous outbreaks, we were already with a huge number of cases.”

Either way, Mañalich argued that Chile may experience an increase in hospitalizations over the next 15 days and a “very discreet” increase in the number of deceased. “I am sure that in the next 15 days or three weeks we will have an increase in cases, a slight increase in hospitalizations and a very modest increase in deaths. This is what we can speculate “Mañalich maintained.

This Wednesday, September 22, Chile recorded 526 coronavirus infections while active cases rose to 3,297. 5 deaths from covid-19 have been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 37,379. Patients currently admitted to intensive care units (ICU) there are 429 and those related to invasive mechanical ventilation are 319.

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