80% of Chile’s target population has already been vaccinated against Covid-19 (July 31)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Eighty percent of the Chilean population suitable to be vaccinated has completed its vaccination schedule against Covid-19, a percentage from which herd immunity is considered to be achieved, health authorities informed this Friday, July 31.

In a country with almost 19 million inhabitants, “the target population (to be vaccinated) is 15,200,840 people, where 86% of the population has been vaccinated with a single and first dose, and 80% of the population has been vaccinated with a single and second dose”, said the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris.

“We have reached 80% of the target population with a complete vaccination schedule. We congratulate Chileans because this is everyone’s achievement. We must continue with this vaccination process; the vaccines will continue to reach the country,” Paris said.

The early negotiation of vaccines with various laboratories and the extensive primary care network are two of the key factors that expedited immunization in Chile, a process in which it has been one of the world leaders from the very beginning.

So far, more than 28.5 million doses have arrived, mostly from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac (almost 19.7 million) and to a lesser extent also from Pfizer/BioNTech, Cansino, and AstraZeneca.

The health authorities also approved the Janssen vaccine and the Russian Sputnik V; they expect to receive doses in coming months.

According to the local press, the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Immunizations (Cavei) recommended to the Ministry of Health to inoculate a third or “booster” to the population. At the same time, the Undersecretary of Public Health, Paula Daza, assured that there are vaccines available to do so, but that so far, no strategy has been defined in this regard.

PANDEMIC UNDER CONTROL

As a result of the high percentage of immunization, after a serious second wave that extended from March to July and put the hospital system on the ropes, the pandemic has retreated to levels not seen since April 2020, and the country is partially back to normal after a long period of restrictions.

The variation of new confirmed coronavirus cases in Chile dropped by 14% and 47% for the 7-day and 14-day comparison, respectively, the Ministry of Health reported Friday.

Authorities reported 1,355 new cases of Covid-19 and 71 deaths due to causes associated with this disease, registered during the last 24 hours. 1,452 people are hospitalized in Intensive Care Units (ICU), of which 1,163 are on mechanical ventilation. There are currently a total of 528 such beds available in the country for patients who require them.

The total number of people who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the country reached 1,614,629, of which 8,593 are in the active stage, while the overall number of deaths amounts to 35,366 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The positivity rate – the number of infections detected per 100 PCR tests performed – reported on Friday was 2.14%, based on the results of 63,348 tests performed in the last 24 hours.

For several weeks now, the country has had a positivity rate of less than 5%, a figure that, when sustained for more than 15 days, is considered by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) as one of the epidemiological criteria to consider the pandemic under control.

The authorities, however, have not yet opened the borders to foreigners after closing them in April, and a curfew is in force from midnight to 5 AM in most parts of the country.