RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Chile announced Monday that it is extending the border closure decreed in April until June 30 to try to contain the pandemic, which is keeping hospitals at the limit and a good part of the population in quarantine, despite the high vaccination rate.
The border closure affects tourists entering the country and nationals and foreign residents, who can only travel in exceptional cases, such as medical emergencies or humanitarian reasons.
The measure has been in force since April 1, when the second wave began to run rampant after the summer vacations. It can only be decreed if a State of Constitutional Exception expires precisely on June 30 and whose renewal is still up in the air.
The State of Constitutional Exception, which the government would like to renew for three more months, also allows the establishment of quarantines and a curfew, currently in force from 10 PM to 5 AM.
The Chilean Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, acknowledged at a press conference his “concern” about the worldwide dissemination of the variant detected in India, called Delta, which is up to 50 % more transmissible than the Alpha variant found for the first time in the United Kingdom, according to a study by the Indian Government published on Monday.
“In recent days, we have seen a large increase in deaths (in the world), and we will not deny it, this has also occurred in Chile (…) It is a global phenomenon and deeply affects Latin America,” said Paris.
Chile surpassed this Monday the barrier of 30,000 deaths (30,058) by registering 121 deaths in the last 24 hours and 6,958 cases, which leaves the total balance since March last year at 1.43 million infected.
“We have done everything humanly possible to control the pandemic,” admitted the official, who again called on the population to get vaccinated, as 75% of the confirmed cases had not completed their inoculation schedule.
“We have 900,000 people who should have been vaccinated and have not been vaccinated. Most of the people in ICU and who are dying are not vaccinated,” he added.
There are also 48,596 active cases or potentially infectious persons – one of the highest numbers of the pandemic – and national hospital occupancy above 95%, with 166 intensive care beds nationwide.
The national positivity rate – the number of positive PCR tests per 100 tests performed – was 8.3%, while in the Metropolitan Region, which is home to the capital, it is 10%.
Therefore, the longed-for return to normality is still far off even though Chile has vaccinated more than 55.4% of the target population with two doses and 73.5% with one injection, equivalent to almost 11 of the 19 million inhabitants.