National Holidays: government backs down permits for 46 quarantined communes

Only four days after the announcement of the plan “Fondéate en tu casa”, the government decided to reverse and rectify part of the special sanitary rules that will govern during these National Holidays, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that allowed small family reunions for six hours between September 18 and 20.

Today, the government spokesman, Jaime Bellolio, in the framework of the Sunday report on the evolution of the pandemic, announced that said special permit will not apply to those communes whose numbers of infections are high and are still in Phase 1, that is, low quarantine. “We have made the determination that this special, transitory permit for September 18, 19 and 20, will exclude those communes that are currently in Phase 1, that is, that are in quarantine,” he said.

The permit that authorized meetings of up to five additional people to the inhabitants of the home, in closed places, and a maximum of 10 in open spaces, had already generated criticism among experts and authorities in the areas hardest hit by coronavirus infections. In fact, the mayor of Punta Arenas, Claudio Radonich, had described the measure as “incoherent and contradictory”, while the mayor of Biobío, Sergio Giacaman, harshly questioned the plan, which even led to a public disagreement with La Moneda .

This reversal in the plan, according to the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, was after hearing “the people and regional authorities.”

Currently, according to the Executive, there are 46 communes in Phase 1 of confinement, of which 15 are in the Metropolitan Region.

If they stay in this phase, the inhabitants of those areas will not be allowed to meet in National Holidays. For the rest of the communes -those that are maintained in Phase 2, 3, 4 and 5-, the special permit, which must be processed, will allow them to participate in meetings with a maximum capacity of five people in addition to the family that inhabits that place (closed rooms) and 10 in the case of open spaces. Between September 17 and 20, in addition, the curfew will be brought forward from 11:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., with the purpose of discouraging night parties. Inns and mass events are prohibited, in addition to trips to second homes. The authority announced that it will install sanitary cords at the exits of Santiago and main roads in the country.

The spokesman for the Chilean Society of Intensive Medicine (Sochimi), Eduardo Tobar, affirmed that reversing the decision was correct: “Everything that is done to reduce mobility is positive, because the final solution is going to be the vaccine and for this we need to much. If cases increase, the system is put at risk, which has already been very on the brink and in many regions is very complicated ”.

Along these lines, the former Minister of Health and member of the Covid-19 Social Table Carmen Castillo, pointed out that the government’s measure seems “correct, since the quarantine implies that there are risks in the communes and it is important that distance be maintained Social”.

Meanwhile, the epidemiologist from the University of Chile, Gabriel Cavada, considered it appropriate for people in quarantined communes to reduce their mobility, “because there are data at the national level that are of concern. We have two thousand cases every day, which is a lot and speaks of an endemic, at the same level as in May ”.

In turn, the mayor of Renca, Claudio Castro, whose commune remains confined, criticized what he describes as “improvisation of the government.” “The residents of Renca see that in neighboring areas there is a lack of definition, then they are told that they will also be able to visit their relatives and now they are informed that they will not. So the signals must be clear ”. Meanwhile, the mayor of Independencia, Gonzalo Durán, assured that today it is complex to “combat the collective sentiment of the confinement. While there are communes that open restaurants and bars, others cannot even go to work ”.

The Magallanes Region is one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. According to Sochimi, the occupation of its ICU beds is at 100%. The collapse of critical beds is such that today three intubated patients were transferred to the capital to be admitted to the ICU of the Metropolitan Hospital.

According to information from the Central Metropolitan Health Service, which coordinates the transfers together with the Samu and the Fach, the increase in cases could require the Hercules plane again, which allows the transfer of four intubated patients simultaneously. This type of operation has not been performed since July 22, when four patients were moved from Antofagasta to Santiago.