Source: https://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latin...ntagios-574763
Chile, at the limit of its hospital capacity after rebound in cases
Faced with an increase in infections, the Santiago authorities decreed a total quarantine.
By: AFP Y EFE
March 19, 2021, 08:56 p.m. m.
The occupancy of beds in intensive care units (ICU) in Chile reached its highest level to date, close to 95 percent, due to the second wave of covid-19 that the country suffers, which this Friday reported 6,604 new infections , the third highest peak in the entire pandemic.
Faced with this scenario, the Santiago authorities once again imposed a total quarantine both in the capital and in seven other municipalities, where 7.1 of the nearly 19 million inhabitants of the country live. Hospital availability has been declining, and the occupancy percentage went from 93.5 percent two weeks ago to 94.8 percent today, according to a joint report by the University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Concepci?n, which states that the situation "is cause for great concern."
"There is a very high occupancy of ICU beds that has continued to increase slowly but consistently," says the document, and reveals that the increase has been progressive since May last year, when there was the lowest ICU occupancy (62 percent), and which has now surpassed the highest record so far, which was last January (94 percent).
The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, told the press on Friday that there are more ICU beds occupied than in the worst moments of the pandemic, in June of last year, but that now ?the beds occupied by patients with covid-19 are only 70 percent of all ICU patients; therefore, 30 percent are occupied by surgical patients, operated on for tumors ?.
Paris also reported that "the occupancy of critical beds is 3,141, the highest figure recorded to date, of which 2,193 correspond to ICU, with 1,907 patients hospitalized with mechanical ventilation support."
The number of critical beds available nationwide today is 201.
The southern summer holidays 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 this Friday by the authorities, the total balance since the beginning of the pandemic thus reached 918,053 cases and 22,087 deaths, after registering 99 deaths in the last 24 hours. The number of patients in the active stage of the disease, which means that they can be contagious, is at all-time highs, reaching 36,433.
Given the worsening of the situation, the authorities have been tightening the measures in the capital region and in other parts of the country, decreeing quarantines for weekends in some places and total confinements in others.
Likewise, the minister said that they are proposing "to hire or call to work officials from any field of health who are already retired or who have received an incentive to retire" to increase the staff working in ICUs.
He also reported that he has spoken with clinics, university hospitals and institutional hospitals of the Armed Forces and the Carabineros police force, and was confident that more beds will be available next week.
In parallel, Chile is continuing with a vaccination plan that so far is one of the fastest in the world and has already managed to inoculate more than 5 million people, a figure that encompasses the entire population at risk.
The next goal set by the Government is to inoculate before June the rest of the target population (about 15 million people, out of a total population of 19 million
Chile, at the limit of its hospital capacity after rebound in cases
Faced with an increase in infections, the Santiago authorities decreed a total quarantine.
By: AFP Y EFE
March 19, 2021, 08:56 p.m. m.
The occupancy of beds in intensive care units (ICU) in Chile reached its highest level to date, close to 95 percent, due to the second wave of covid-19 that the country suffers, which this Friday reported 6,604 new infections , the third highest peak in the entire pandemic.
Faced with this scenario, the Santiago authorities once again imposed a total quarantine both in the capital and in seven other municipalities, where 7.1 of the nearly 19 million inhabitants of the country live. Hospital availability has been declining, and the occupancy percentage went from 93.5 percent two weeks ago to 94.8 percent today, according to a joint report by the University of Chile, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Concepci?n, which states that the situation "is cause for great concern."
"There is a very high occupancy of ICU beds that has continued to increase slowly but consistently," says the document, and reveals that the increase has been progressive since May last year, when there was the lowest ICU occupancy (62 percent), and which has now surpassed the highest record so far, which was last January (94 percent).
The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, told the press on Friday that there are more ICU beds occupied than in the worst moments of the pandemic, in June of last year, but that now ?the beds occupied by patients with covid-19 are only 70 percent of all ICU patients; therefore, 30 percent are occupied by surgical patients, operated on for tumors ?.
Paris also reported that "the occupancy of critical beds is 3,141, the highest figure recorded to date, of which 2,193 correspond to ICU, with 1,907 patients hospitalized with mechanical ventilation support."
The number of critical beds available nationwide today is 201.
The southern summer holidays 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 this Friday by the authorities, the total balance since the beginning of the pandemic thus reached 918,053 cases and 22,087 deaths, after registering 99 deaths in the last 24 hours. The number of patients in the active stage of the disease, which means that they can be contagious, is at all-time highs, reaching 36,433.
Given the worsening of the situation, the authorities have been tightening the measures in the capital region and in other parts of the country, decreeing quarantines for weekends in some places and total confinements in others.
Likewise, the minister said that they are proposing "to hire or call to work officials from any field of health who are already retired or who have received an incentive to retire" to increase the staff working in ICUs.
He also reported that he has spoken with clinics, university hospitals and institutional hospitals of the Armed Forces and the Carabineros police force, and was confident that more beds will be available next week.
In parallel, Chile is continuing with a vaccination plan that so far is one of the fastest in the world and has already managed to inoculate more than 5 million people, a figure that encompasses the entire population at risk.
The next goal set by the Government is to inoculate before June the rest of the target population (about 15 million people, out of a total population of 19 million
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