SANTIAGO – Chile revised its death toll linked to the novel coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, adding fatalities from databases that previously had not been included.
Health Minister Jaime Mañalich, in his daily media briefing, said 653 additional deaths linked to COVID-19 had to be counted, bringing the total number to 2,290. That included 96 new deaths announced in the Sunday daily report, reaching a total of 1,637 since the start of the pandemic in March this year.
In addition, 6,405 new infections were reported – 5,760 with symptoms and 645 asymptomatic – reaching a total of 134,150.
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Chile has one of the highest numbers of cases in Latin America, which has become an epicenter of the pandemic even as countries worldwide have begun to reopen. Brazil, Peru and Mexico have also been hard hit by the virus.
Mañalich said that databases on deceased persons certified by the civil registry had been reviewed and along with information from laboratories doing PCR tests for the virus had been consolidated into a single list.
“This is an adjustment we have to make and report, a commitment to legitimacy, especially when we’ve made a huge effort to search additional databases for information not present in the databases that we were using before,” he said.
Mañalich added that death certificate information would now be included if “in any way, directly or indirectly, it may be linked to COVID-19 as a cause associated with death.”
In the last 24 hours, the minister reported, there have been 21,265 new PCR tests, thus reaching 708,773 total tests.
With over 88% of ICU beds occupied, Chile has 11,812 places available throughout the country for people who need to go to a health residence.
According to the Carabineros daily report, 1,386 people were detained during the last day (from Saturday, June 6 at 06:00 today).
In detail, 247 detainees were for violating the curfew and 1,139 for violating the sanitary quarantine .
