Santiago de Chile will return to full quarantine: coronavirus cases have increased and 98% of intensive care beds are occupied

Chilean health authorities reported on Thursday that the Metropolitan area, home to the capital and home to more than 7 million people, return to total quarantine this Saturday due to the sustained increase in cases in recent days and the alarming collapse in health.

“Although in our country we have seen a certain stabilization of cases and in some regions positive trends, The Metropolitan Region worries us more because of the number of inhabitants and critical beds», Declared the under-secretariat for public health, Paula Daza.

As reported by the Ministry of Health, Santiago’s hospital situation is borderline, with 98% of intensive care unit beds occupied, despite the fact that some of its quarters have been subjected to total containment measures for more than nine weeks.

The availability of beds, Daza pointed out, is one of the “important elements“Faced with the onset of winter, when low temperatures lead people to confinement instead of being outside or reduce the ventilation of spaces.

According to the daily report, this Thursday, 7,716 new infections and 198 deaths were detected, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to 1.45 million people infected and 30,339 dead.

Nationwide, 45,774 patients are in the active stage of the disease, which means they have the capacity to spread the virus and of which more than 30,000 are in the metropolitan area, which on Thursday recorded a rate 12% positivity.

To date, 3,266 people remain hospitalized due to COVID-19, of which 2,798 are on mechanical ventilation.

Chile has not been able to contain the advance of the pandemic, despite the deployment of a massive vaccination campaign since the beginning of February, with more than 11.2 of the 19 million inhabitants already vaccinated with at least one dose.

Consulted by the Delta variant, which has already been identified in neighboring countries such as Argentina and Peru, authorities confirmed that it had not yet been identified in Chile, which closed the borders until June 30. .

(With information from EFE)

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