A woman receives a vaccine as part of the seasonal influenza vaccination campaign for children and the elderly, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Santiago, Chile, April 13, 2021. REUTERS / Ivan Alvarado
Chilean health authorities said on Thursday that they believed a dip in the record numbers the Andean nation has seen in the past week signifies a ‘stabilization’ of a second wave of COVID-19 thanks to strict lockdowns and a rapid vaccination program affecting a third of the population. .
Health Minister Enrique Paris told reporters he hoped the 9,000 daily record cases reached last week were the peak of the latest outbreak.
“Once we hit that peak, we don’t expect a reduction but a stabilization and then a return to a smaller number of positive patients,” he said.
Chile has now vaccinated 50% of its target population of 15 million people with at least one dose of the drugs developed by Pfizer or Sinovac and 32.7% given two doses, Paris said.
He said tougher lockdowns now covering more than 80% of the country, coupled with awareness-raising campaigns, should allow Chile to hold elections on May 15 to elect voters to draft a new constitution, as well as local government officials. The election was postponed from April.
Chile’s experience of the pandemic is being watched with excitement by many beyond its borders to see how much its vaccination campaign – one of the world’s fastest and most comprehensive to date – will mitigate successive waves of the virus.
On Friday, it will be one of the first countries in the world to release ‘real world’ data showing how effective the vaccines have been in reducing contamination, serious illness and deaths.
Health experts remain divided as to whether the lockdowns and vaccines will be enough to curb the second wave ahead or whether new strains of virus, limited vaccine efficiency and citizens’ backlash against sanitation will continue to drive up numbers.
Paula Daza, the country’s top public health official, said the vaccines already reduced infection rates and hospital admissions of older groups first inoculated.
“People under 50 represent 65% of confirmed (COVID-19) cases and 41% of those hospitalized,” she said.
Claudia Reyes, a 38-year-old ICU nurse at Santiago’s Workers’ Hospital, said they had seen an “exponential” increase in cases of largely younger patients.
She said fatigue or indifference to the lockdowns was evident in the general population, despite daily broadcasts about the severity of the second wave.
“There are so many people on the street, on public transport,” she said. “It feels like last year the population was under better control, but this time, regardless of the COVID situation, that there are fewer or no hospital beds, the consciousness of the people is not in line with reality.”
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