Chile, which is in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic, added 4,313 new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus contagions this Saturday and set a new testing record of 65,199 PCRs in the last 24 hours, which yielded a positivity rate of 6.62%.
“We are facing a regrowth scenario and we are taking action, but now we are better prepared than in June and July and do more than twice as much tests,” explained Health Minister Enrique Paris.
For the past two months, the country has seen an increase in the number of new daily cases that has led the authorities to decree total quarantine in more than 40 neighborhoods in the country, a measure that affects more than 20% of the population and is not ruled out implementing in the capital next week.
With the 4,313 cases of the last 24 hours, the total balance reached 665,493 contagions since last March and 17,435 deaths from covid-19, after accounting for 66 new deaths in the last day.
With more than 7.2 million PCR tests since March, Chile is one of the most tested countries in Latin America and the world by one million inhabitants.
In the last 24 hours, Paris added, the increase in the number of contagions was less than 30% and today the largest increase in cases took place in the Atacama and Arica regions of the north and los Lagos in the south.
This Saturday, 25,000 active cases of the virus were recorded, implying that they can spread, one of the highest figures since July.
The start of the second wave coincides with the start of the summer season, which has made frequent agglomerations on the beaches near Santiago, stimulated by a holiday permit announced by the authorities at the end of 2020.
On the vaccination process, the authorities reported that more than 13,000 health workers in the regions most affected by the health crisis received at least one dose of Pfizer and more than 8,000 obtained the two doses needed to ensure immunity.
Chile, which began immunization on 24 December, has received more than 100,000 vaccines and by March expects to receive nearly one million through regular shipments.
The Government’s goal is to vaccinate the entire at-risk population (health, older adults, the chronically ill, members of the Armed Forces and educational staff) in the first quarter of 2021 and the rest in the first six months of 2021.
According to the Institute of Public Health, 18 people have already been detected infected with the new variant of coronavirus in travelers from two different flights from Spain, and one of them is located in the capital.
