They investigate the appearance of a Chilean strain of the coronavirus

Amid a very disturbing increase in coronavirus cases and heavy occupancy of intensive care beds, Chilean health authorities are investigating the possible existence of a new strain.

Chile reported for the second consecutive day more than 8 thousand new cases, after reporting 8,028 infections in the past 24 hours after the record 8,112 patients were reached on Friday.

The authorities are taking extreme resources by expanding the beds in ICUs (intensive therapy), given that the number of people requiring hospitalization reached 2,867 people on Saturday, including 2460 are supported by mechanical ventilation.

According to information from the Ministry of Health, there is a total of 199 critical beds available on the integrated Covid network.

Some municipalities in the metropolitan region have extended the vaccination against the coronavirus to Saturday and Sunday, in order to speed up the vaccination.

Health Minister Enrique Paris was asked if there was a “Chilean strain”, in addition to the British and Brazilian Bretons already detected in the country, which explain the increase in infections.

The highest health authority replied that “the Institute of Public Security (ISP) sequenced all the suspicious variants, with the support of the Ministry of Science”.

“So far two have been detected and from next week, 500 samples will be sequenced – double what has been done so far – to detect new strains that could explain this increase in infections, ”he explained.

With the 8,028 new cases this Saturday, 1,019,478 SARS-CoV2 patients have been confirmed in the country, of which 44,584 remain active, that is to say carriers of the virus capable of transmitting it.

The Statistics and Information Directorate of the Ministry of Health (DEIS) has confirmed 103 deaths from causes linked to the coronavirus, bringing the number of victims of the pandemic to 23,524 people.

By comparison, on Saturday last week, 66 deaths were recorded by relevant agencies and 7,588 infections reported.

The laboratories reported the results of 70,458 PCR tests, which gave a national positivity of the last 24 hours of 11.09%, while the positivity in the metropolitan area was 12%.

On the question of whether there is a collapse of the country’s emergency systemAfter the press noted that ambulances had to wait to be able to drop off patients, the health minister said he was unaware that there was a wait in ambulance care services.

The undersecretary of the health networks, Alberto Dougnac, stressed that “there are 3,900 intensive beds, which implies enormous pressure on the emergency services”, he stressed, however, that “we have a protocol to draw from it which allowed us not to see the clogging that occurred last year “, alluding to the first wave of June 2020.

In this second wave, urgent cases of emergency young adults who need to be intubated given the ferocity with which the virus attacked him. Healthcare workers not only exhibit physical exhaustion but also extreme emotional fatigue.

With information from Ansa.