Santiago de Chile will return to quarantine due to sanitary collapse and despite high vaccination rate | International | News

The hospital situation in the country’s capital is on the edge, with 98% of the beds in intensive care units occupied.

EFE

June 10, 2021 – 2:34 pm

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Chilean health authorities reported this Thursday that the Metropolitan Region, which is home to the capital and where more than 7 million people live, returns to a total quarantine this Saturday due to the sustained increase in cases in recent days and the alarming health collapse.

“Although in our country we have seen some stabilization of cases and in some regions positive trends, the Metropolitan Region worries us more because of the number of inhabitants and critical beds,” said the Undersecretary of Public Health, Paula Daza.

As reported by the Ministry of Health, Santiago’s hospital situation is on the edge, with 98% of intensive care unit beds occupied, despite the fact that some of its neighborhoods have been under total confinement measures for more than nine weeks.

The availability of beds, Daza said, is one of the “important elements” in the face of the arrival of winter, as low temperatures lead people to confine themselves instead of being outdoors or reduce the ventilation of spaces.

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

Nationwide, 45,774 patients are in the active stage of the disease, which means that they have the capacity to spread the virus and of which more than 30,000 are in the Metropolitan Region, which this Thursday registered 12% in its rate of positivity.

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

Chile has not been able to contain the advance of the pandemic, despite deploying 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, the authorities confirmed that it has not yet been identified in Chile, which has closed borders until June 30.

Meanwhile, this Thursday the regulatory authorities approved the emergency use for those over 18 years of age of the vaccine from the Janssen laboratory, of Johnson & Johnson, which becomes the fifth authorized injection in the country after those of Pfizer-BioNTech, the Chinese Sinovac and CanSino, and that of AstraZeneca.

“We have approved the authorization of the WHO, a process that opens the possibility of recognizing other vaccines that already have this support, such as Moderna or Sinopharm,” announced the director of the Institute of Public Health (ISP), Heriberto García.

According to the body, the efficacy of the serum is 66.9% 14 days after it has been supplied, compared to 95% for Pfizer-BioNTech or 80% for AstraZeneca.

For severe or critical cases, meanwhile, its coverage reaches 76.7% after two weeks, and rises to 85.4% in the 28 days after its inoculation, the official added.

The vaccine, which requires a single dose and is for adenovirus -transporter virus-, is already authorized in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, Colombia, the European Union, Mexico and the United States for those over 18 years of age. (I)

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