Covid-19: Chile surpasses Israel to lead world in percentage of population with booster doses

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This week Chile surpassed Israel and became the country with the highest booster dose ratio against Covid-19, with 43.92% versus 43.90% in Israel. In addition, Minsal reported that 91.06% of the population over 18 years of age had completed its vaccination schedule.

Chile became this week the country with the highest number of booster doses per 100,000 inhabitants in the world, surpassing Israel by 0.02%, according to Our World in Data. The international platform is responsible for presenting data and empirical results through graphs, for showing the change in living conditions in the world.

According to the data above, 43.92% of the target population was vaccinated in Chile with booster doses, while Israel reached 43.90%.

The news comes after the Ministry of Health announced that 91.06% of the population over 18 years of age had completed its vaccination schedule.

According to the Department of Statistics and Health Information figures, 40,833,753 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to the total national population. Regarding those over 18 years of age, 14,202,179 have been vaccinated with a single and first dose and 13,841,309 with a single and second dose. Regarding the booster dose, 8,417,635 people have been inoculated with this dose.

BOOSTER WAS MASSIVELY PROMOTED BECAUSE OF A NEW OUTBREAK

In November vaccination champion Chile again recorded spikes in coronavirus infections in nine of the country’s 16 regions.

At that time 89.5% of the target population had been injected with two doses, 5 million booster doses had been administered, and 75% of children between 6 and 17 years of age had already received their first dose of the vaccine.

And still, the numbers got worse.

The positivity rate, the percentage of positives out of the total number of PCR tests performed, exceeded the 3% barrier for the first time in three months in Chile and reached 3.06% at the end of October, at a time when the country is experiencing a resurgence of Covid-19 despite high vaccination rates.

To try to curb contagions, the health authorities announced back then a reduction in the capacity in the capital and intensified the vaccination campaign of the booster dose.