Reverse: Santiago de Chile returns to confinami …

Due to the sustained increase in cases and the collapse in health, The Chilean authorities on Thursday imposed a new total quarantine in the metropolitan area. Although with 57% of the population vaccinated, Chile is close to the desired percentage to achieve collective immunity, deaths and infections are on the increase.

“From this Saturday the entire Metropolitan Region will return to quarantine“, announced the Under-Secretary for Public Health, Paula Daza, on the measure which will affect the more than seven million inhabitants who reside in this zone, the most populated of the country.

“Although in our country we have seen a certain stabilization of cases and in some regions positive trends, the Metropolitan Region worries us more about the number of inhabitants and critical beds”, he added, while specifying than who have already completed their vaccination They can only circulate within the municipalities where they reside.

This is the third time in 14 months of pandemic that the authorities have taken this measure, on a day when they were recorded 7,716 new cases and 198 deaths by covid-19. In total, since the arrival of the virus in the country, 1,453,478 infected and 30,339 deaths have been counted.

The health system, in this scenario of strong increases, is at the limit, with the 98% of intensive care beds occupied. The availability of beds, Daza pointed out, is one of the “important things” in the face of the onset of winter, as with the low temperatures people tend to congregate indoors and reduce ventilation. bedrooms.

Meanwhile, the vaccination campaign continues to advance at an accelerated pace: this week has started to be given to people over 22 years old and from June 21 it will start with adolescents from 12 years old. Until the date, there are 11.1 million people vaccinated with at least one dose (74.5%) and 8.6 million with double doses (57%), out of a target population of 15.2 million people. However, the results are far from being expected.

This is attributed, in part, to 82% of the doses applied correspond to the Sinovac formula (CoronaVac), which is approximately 56% effective in preventing the spread of the disease. This way, although it has a greater ability to avoid hospitalizations and deaths, the spread of Sars CoV-2 and its variants does not stop.

On Thursday, the Institute of Public Health (ISP) approved the emergency use of the Janssen vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which will arrive in the country via the international Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO). This single-dose vaccine is the fifth approved by the Chilean authorities and is in addition to those already applied: Sinovac (17.1 million), Pfizer / BioNTech (4.5 million), AstraZeneca (693,600, also via Covax) and CanSino (300,000).