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TO 71 days of the first confirmed coronavirus in Chile and due to 60% increase of the cases in the last 24 hours, finally today the authorities decreed mandatory total quarantine in Santiago, measure that will take effect from this Friday at 10 pm and will affect about 7 million inhabitants.
Until now in the country, a strategy of dynamic quarantines, instead of closing cities completely. However, the increase in infections, especially in Santiago in the last 10 days, where it is concentrated 80% of those infected nationwide, led the authorities to decree for the first time the complete closure of the capital, including also the over 75 years of age throughout the territory.
The figures had started to increase in early May, after the authorities began to propose a “new normal” strategy and a “safe return” both to classes and workplaces, after having reached a plateau of daily infections that fluctuated between 400 and 500 cases. Likewise, an average considered high was announced for a country of almost 18 million inhabitants, with the realization of some 12 thousand PCR tests up to date.
But only today 2,660 new cases of coronavirus were reported and 11 more died. The figure of confirmed newspapers in Chile is even higher than in the United States, considering cases per million inhabitants.
But Santiago’s case may not be the only one. For him Dr. Rodrigo Cruz, infectious medicine doctor and Director of the Center for Diagnosis and Research of Infectious Diseases of the School of Medicine of the University of Valparaíso, there is a high risk that due to the outbreak detected in the Valparaíso region, cities such as San Antonio, Viña and Valparaíso itself will become new large outbreaks of contagion in the coming days.
“In principle I am not very in favor of total quarantines because they bring complications to the most humble people, and both violence and robbery increase. However, given the fact that we currently have much of Santiago in quarantine and the numbers have also grown in the Valparaíso region, the authority should establish a quarantine for about two weeks“He points out.
The infectologist adds that both in the Valparaíso region, total quarantine in the commune of San Antonio and sanitary cords in the entrances to Viña and Valparaíso, “even would extend them to neighboring cities. The same would be appropriate for the large urban centers of the north and south of the country that present similar behaviors in the increase of positive cases. “
“Furthermore, we must consider that people have collaborated little and that is the main factor. Pandemics work together with the population and little has been done here for it. In the center of Viña it seems like a normal day with people and cars, the same at the Valparaiso fairs ”.
For the expert, it is even possible that the arrival of Santiaguinos by the long weekends of Easter and May 1 have influenced, although he insists that the general population has bad habits: “People believe that by going with a cloth mask they will save themselves from infections, they put their hands to their mouths, eyes , nose, they have not kept the distance or social isolation, they have not taken the necessary precautions and that is happening to us. We’re having very difficult days“He assures.
“Today at the national level we have almost 3 thousand cases: if we continue like this we will have 30 thousand cases in 15 days and that would be catastrophic, the system probably does not have the support capacity to solve it, ”says the infectologist.
“We still have the minimum time to correct it, considering the limited collaboration of the people, the coverage of the quarantines should be expanded, perhaps for a limited time and in some areas“
“The authorities understand that people will understand the message, they will collaborate and we all start from that base, but it has been difficult that people do not go to their second home, to walk to the beach, and that inhabitants of the region itself keep their distance and do not lead a normal life, “he adds.
Furthermore, Cruz criticizes the little progress in hygiene: “As a country we talk about hand cleaning but we do not put it into practice, there is no such possibility at the entrances of fairs or main avenues, we do not facilitate hand washing for people; all this is not being carried out in the correct way ”.
“This quarantine should be in a limited time to try to contain these next two weeks, with an increase in the number of cases ”.
“If we continue to grow exponentially as the number of total cases so far, as a health system it is going to make us collapse soon and that can have catastrophic results as a country“Sentence.
“People’s behavior is definitely not helping. Either people understand the importance of maintaining strict confinement and social distancing or we will fail to control this disease and many will die. There is no measure that results if the community does not cooperate and is supportive. And since that has not happened so far, it seems to me that there is an urgent need for more extreme measures“, Explain.
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