The occupancy of beds in intensive care units (ICU) in Chili It hit its highest level to date, nearly 95 percent, as a result of the second wave of covid-19 affecting the country, which reported 6,604 new infections Friday, the third-highest peak in the entire pandemic.
Against this background, the authorities are of Santiago They have reintroduced a total quarantine as of today, both in the capital and seven other municipalities, where 7.1 of the country’s nearly 19 million residents live. Hospital availability has declined and the occupancy rate has increased from 93 percent ago to 94.8 percent today, according to a joint report by the University of Chile, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Concepción, which states that the situation is “cause for grave concern.”
(You Can Read: Chile Reports Highest Number of Critically Ill Patients in the Entire Pandemic)
“There is a very high IC bed occupancy that has continued to increase slowly but steadily,” the document says, showing that the increase has been progressive since May last year, when there was the lowest IC occupancy (62 percent) and it has now surpassed the highest record to date, which was January last year (94 percent).
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The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, told the press Friday that there are more ICU beds occupied than at the worst times of the pandemic last June, but that now “beds occupied by patients with covid-19 are only 70 percent of all IC patients; that is why 30 percent is taken up by surgical patients, operated on tumors ”.
Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, has already been vaccinated against the corona virus.
Presidency of Chile. EFE
Paris also reported that “the occupancy of critical beds is 3,141, the highest figure to date, of which 2,193 match the ICU, with 1,907 patients hospitalized on mechanical ventilation support.”
The number of critical beds currently available nationwide is 201.
The southern summer vacation plunged Chile into a second wave of covid-19 that increased the weekly average of new infections per day to 5,075, according to the university report.
With the 6,604 cases reported by authorities this Friday, this is the total balance since the start of the pandemic It thus reached 918,053 cases and 22,087 deaths, after recording 99 deaths in the past 24 hours. The number of patients in the active stage of the disease, meaning they can be contagious, is at an all-time high, reaching 36,433.
Given the deterioration of the situation, the authorities have tightened measures in the capital region and other parts of the country, issuing quarantines for weekends in some places and total detention in others.
Likewise, the minister said they propose “employing officials from any health sector who are already retired or who have received an incentive to retire” to increase the workforce in ICUs.
He also reported that he has spoken with clinics, university hospitals and institutional hospitals of the Armed Forces and Police of Carabineros, and was confident that more beds will be available next week.
At the same time, Chile is continuing a vaccination plan that is one of the fastest in the world to date and has inoculated more than 5 million people, a figure that includes the entire population at risk.
The next goal set by the government is to inoculate the rest of the target audience by June (about 15 million people, out of a total population of 19 million).
EFE and AFP
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AFP