Chile surpasses the barrier of 8,000 new daily cases for the first time

Santiago de Chile, Apr 2 (EFE) .- The coronavirus pandemic remains uncontrolled in Chile, which this Friday surpassed the barrier of 8,000 new daily cases for the first time and the number of patients in the active stage of the disease set a new record , with 45,202 people who can currently infect.
The health authorities reported that in the last 24 hours, 8,112 new cases and 93 deaths were registered, which raises the total balance since the beginning of the pandemic more than a year ago to more than 1 million infected and 23,421 deaths, to the that should be added more than 8,000 that are not yet confirmed.

So far the highest number of new infections was detected this Thursday (7,830), although for a few days the country has added very similar data.

During the most critical months of the first wave, between last June and July, the new cases did not exceed 7,000.
“The variation of new confirmed cases at the national level is 11% and 29% in the last 7 and 14 days, respectively,” said Health Minister Enrique Paris.

The positivity rate -the number of COVID-19 infections detected per 100 PCR tests- was 10.7% nationally in the last 24 hours and 12% in Santiago, both figures far from the 5% that the Organization World Health Organization (WHO) recommends keeping it for two weeks in a row to consider the pandemic controlled.
The number of people admitted to intensive care units (2,804) also marked a historic ceiling this Friday, while hospital occupancy in some regions of the country exceeds 95% and in total only 169 critical beds remain.
The virulence of the pandemic, in which the new Brazilian and British strains are playing a fundamental role, led the Chilean Government to announce on Thursday the closure of borders for a month.
It was also decreed the advance of the curfew at 9:00 p.m., the restriction of economic activities that are essential and the limitation of individual permits that citizens can request to go out during the quarantine.
Currently, more than 83% of the population is in strict home confinement, although during the Holy Week holidays the quarantine will affect 97% of the 19 million inhabitants of Chile.

The worsening of the pandemic, which has forced the April 11 elections to be postponed to May, runs parallel to a successful vaccination process, thanks to which more than 6.8 million people have received at least one dose (3, 7 million for the two injections) and has placed Chile among the three countries in the world with the highest percentage of inoculated population.
Experts point out that the fast-paced vaccination rate could have played against Chile and led the population to overconfidence, compounded by fatigue after a year with restrictions.