The authorities of the Ministry of Health were “very concerned” this Saturday about the 22% increase in new cases of covid-19 at the national level in the last week and called on the population to “extreme” the protection measures for the Christmas holidays.
“The variation in cases confirmed, unfortunately, at the national level shows a 22% increase in the last 7 days. We are very concerned,” said Health Minister Enrique Paris.
For the second day in a row, Chile scored more than 2,000 new cases daily, after several months around the thousand daily infected, showing that the pandemic is taking strength again.
In the last 24 hours, 2,217 new cases and 50 deaths were recorded, raising the total balance from the beginning of March to 583,354 infected and 16,101 in total deaths, to which almost 5,000 deaths awaiting a PCR should be added.
“The only vaccine we have so far is mask, hand washing and physical estating. Young people are transmitting the virus a lot,” Paris said.
The country authorized the Pfizer vaccine this week, the first 20,000 doses of which will arrive in December and be used to inoculate health workers. Mass vaccination is expected to take place during the first quarter of 2021.
“Among Latin American countries, Chile is the country with the most vaccines considered for its population,” he said.
Santiago, who with seven million inhabitants was in June on the brink of health collapse, had been in the midst of the gradual opening of the economy for three months, but last week he went back to the second phase in the government-designed return to normal plan, which involves quarantine on weekends and the closure of any non-essential trade.
The Government will decide next week whether it maintains the same mobility restrictions throughout the Metropolitan Region, to which the capital belongs, or does lift the measures in some neighborhoods during Christmas, although it has already advanced this Saturday that in the rest of the country the night curfew will be expanded by two hours, until 2 a.m.
With 6 million exams since March and 46,726 tests in the last 24 hours, Chile is the country that has done the most tests per million inhabitants in the region and one of the first in the world.
