Ross Brown/The Santiago Times Staff
SANTIAGO – Chilean Health Minister Jaime Mañalich has announced the government’s decision to add new communes to the total quarantine as the South American country reported more than 190 COVID-19 related deaths on Wednesday.
At a presser, Mañalich explained that “the urban area of Pozo Almonte is added. In addition, the commune of Peñaflor and its urban area, Melilla, Curavaví, San José de Maipo and Til Til , enter into full quarantine.”
On the other hand, he reported that the communes of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso are added to the total confinement.
The measure takes effect on Friday, June 12, at 10 p.m. and will continue until Friday, June 19.
Meanwhile, all the communes that are still under confinement, including the capital Santiago, are “maintained with the proper measures.”
Also on Wednesday, MINSAL reported that in the last 24 hours there were 192 new deaths attributable to coronaviruses after the data provided by the Civil Registry.
As reported by Minister Mañalich, the figure is detailed as follows, in terms of deaths for days reported by the agency:
- June 8: 19 deceased
- June 7: 76 deceased
- June 6: 49 decease
- Before June 6: 48 deceased
He reiterated that the count system used, based on the Civil Registry, “allows for greater transparency and better delivery of information.”
“This number of registered people will increase in the coming days and contains the deceased certified before today,” he added.
"Como hemos informado, cambiamos la metodología sobre fallecimientos, yendo a buscar al @RegCivil_Chile los datos de inscripción"
"Permite mayor transparencia y mejor entrega de información y usamos como fuente fallecidos y registrados en el @RegCivil_Chile"
– Min. J. Mañalich pic.twitter.com/UYuUwm4T1O
— Ministerio de Salud (@ministeriosalud) June 10, 2020
Mañalich added that 5,737 new infections were indicated in the report, of which 511 corresponded to asymptomatic patients.
“We are responding the way it has been seen: mechanical ventilation, high-flow oxygen therapy, more than 2,000 beds and everything that is being done to strengthen the primary health network, as well as the private sector,” he added.
Defending the new criteria of counting coronavirus deaths, the country’s Science Minister said it is “irresponsible to say that we hide the (number of) deceased.”
Andrés Couve explained to the local media, “It is true that this epidemic requires an information system that we did not have. There is a constant effort to improve it (…) but to say that hiding the dead is irresponsible.”
“It is not an optimal system, but it is much better than the one we had before (…) We have national information, from the base that is in the Civil Registry. That base is crossed with keywords that have to do with the disease COVID-19. That gives us a group and that group excludes people who have died from an external cause, such as trauma, accident, suicide. And that basis is crossed with a positive PCR, “he said.
So far, Chile has a total of 148,496 cases of coronavirus, while at least 2,475 have died from the disease. There are more than 24,000 active cases in the country.
