A woman receives a vaccine as part of the seasonal flu vaccination campaign for children and the elderly during the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19), in Santiago, Chile, on April 13, 2021. REUTERS / Ivan Alvarado
Chile’s health officials said Thursday they believed the drop in case records the Andean nation has seen over the past week represents a “stabilization” of a second wave of COVID-19 thanks to strict closures and a vaccination program. fast that has a third of the population.
Health Minister Enrique Paris told reporters he expected the record 9,000 daily cases reached last week to represent the peak of the latest outbreak.
“Once we reach this peak, we expect not a reduction, but a stabilization, and then a return to a smaller number of positive patients,” he said.
Now Chile has vaccinated 50% of the target population of 15 million people with at least one dose of drugs developed by Pfizer or Sinovac and has given two doses to 32.7%, Paris said.
He said stricter closures that now cover more than 80 percent of the country, along with public awareness campaigns, should allow Chile to hold elections on May 15 to choose voters to draft a new constitution, as well as officials from the local government. The election was postponed from April.
Many beyond their borders are anxiously watching Chile’s experience of the pandemic to see to what extent its vaccination campaign, one of the fastest and most extensive in the world to date, will mitigate successive waves of the virus.
Friday will become one of the first countries in the world to publish “real-world” data showing vaccine’s effectiveness in reducing infection, serious illness and death.
Health experts remain divided on whether blockades and vaccines will be enough to curb the second wave imminently or whether new strains of the virus, limited vaccine efficiency and the public challenge of health measures will continue to increase. .
Paula Daza, the country’s top public health official, said vaccines were already reducing infection rates and hospital admissions from larger groups that were first inoculated.
“People under the age of 50 account for 65% of confirmed cases (COVID-19) and 41% of those hospitalized,” he said.
Claudia Reyes, a 38-year-old nurse in the ICU at Santiago Workers’ Hospital, said she had seen an “exponential” increase in the cases of mostly young patients.
He said fatigue or indifference to the blockades was evident among the general population, despite daily broadcasts about the severity of the second wave.
“There are so many people on the street, on public transportation,” he said. “It seems that last year the population was better contained, but this time, regardless of the situation of COVID, that there are fewer or no hospital beds left, people’s consciousness does not adjust to reality.”
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