translated from Spanish: Coquimbo region reports its highest number of new cases with 92 contagions

The highest number of confirmed COVID-19 contagions reported the Coquimbo Region on Sunday, with 92 positive cases reported by the regional authorities, totaling 990 cumulative cases, of which 362 have recovered.As the mayor Lucía Pinto detailed, “today we are reporting a significant number of new cases, of which 23 are from La Serena, 39 from Coquimbo, 1 from Canela, 2 from Salamanca, 18 from Ovalle, 1 from Combarbalá, 3 from Monte Patria, 1 of Punita, 2 of Rio Hurtado, 2 from other regions”. The regional authority took the opportunity to reinforce the call to the community to do its part in efforts to curb contagion, because “this is not a game, we are talking about a very contagious virus and that can have fatal consequences.” We need all the community’s cooperation with social estrangement measures, mask use and the right and necessary because, we have said this repeatedly, all the measures we can take as a government will be of no use if the families of our region do not do their part,” he added. One of the measures implemented to have better control of contagion throughout the country are health residences, of which the region has 6 in the three provinces. Today there are 129 people who remain in these enclosures, of which 54 are positive for COVID-19 and 75 are suspicious cases, while the current occupancy is 42%, with 179 beds available at the regional level. On the increase of the new cases, the health seremi, Alejandro García, said that “today we report a significant number of cases and as we have already pointed out, we will have in complex weeks because we enter the “peak” (or first wave) of confirmed cases.” Prevention measures, especially social estrangement, masking and hand washing, should therefore be strengthened. Let’s take special care of older adults and people with chronic pathologies because they are the most vulnerable to Covid-19,” he said. On the state of the health care network, of the 1,173 total beds in the region are kept 486 available, with an occupancy of 56%, while, in terms of critical patient units, 33 beds are kept available, of which 12 are ICU and 21 ICU. In addition, Dr. Alejandra Alvarez, Deputy Director of Care Management at the Coquimbo Health Service, detailed that “today we have 35 patients hospitalized by COVID-19, of which 16 are with mechanical ventilation requirement, so their condition is serious. In detail, these are 14 patients in the Ovalle contingency hospital, 8 of them with mechanical ventilation; 12 at La Serena Hospital, 5 with mechanical ventilation; and 9 at The Hospital de Coquimbo, 3 of them connected to mechanical ventilation.” On security, General Pablo Onetto, Head of Regional Defense, reported that “yesterday we monitored 579 people, with 75 people being arrested who did not have their safe conduct or for other crime situations last night. In addition, the IDI monitored 93 people who are serving quarantine at their home. In total, the controls that are part of the responsibilities of the Armed Forces and Order totaled 9,227 people and 3795 vehicles.”

Original source in Spanish