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“There is no health system that can tolerate extreme demand as it has occurred”, sentenced yesterday the Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, in anticipation of what is expected to be key days for managing the pandemic in the country. The change in tone also came from President Sebastián Piñera, who warned that “the next few weeks will be the most difficult.”
In this context, with a sustained rise in Covid-19 infections and a tense demand in the critically ill units (UPC), in the health portfolio it was agreed to suspend visits to regions and stay next weekend in the capital.
And is that the numbers do not accommodate a favorable scenario: the demand for highly complex hospitalization quotas are rising a 5% daily in the country. It is, according to the undersecretary of Assistance Networks, Arturo Zúñiga, an average of 20 patients daily requiring intensive care.
Thus, while in the second half of April the daily hospitalization of patients in intensive care units varied between 300 and 400 people, yesterday reached 604, according to the government report. Also, according to the report of the Society for Intensive Medicine (Sochimi), while at the end of April the Covid-19 patients connected to mechanical ventilation bordering 300 cases, yesterday the balance closed at 584.
In this scenario, health centers are concerned about the number of patients who will need intensive care. According to Sochimi, considering the ones already in use, Until yesterday there were 373 ICU beds available in the country, and only 91 in the Metropolitan Region.
Meanwhile, Salud put yesterday at 582 free fans, but not all would be enabled. “At the national level the occupation of these teams is 77% and in the Metropolitan Region it rises to 87%”Zúñiga said.
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Government and experts are convinced that the country is now facing a starker stage of the pandemic. Worrying concern in the case of MRI.
The head of the UPC of Clínica Indisa, Sebastián Ugarte, says that beds must be “opened tonight”, pointing to that “It’s a matter of days, with 91 beds in the MRI”, for a system saturation to occur.
From the advisory council, the epidemiologist Maria Teresa Valenzuela He warns that they look with concern at the peak of infections registered yesterday, due to the implications that, in a week, it will have on hospital demand:
“We have to stop this situation. Between now and May 20 we have to start decreasing the number of cases. After that date, the number of seriously ill patients is going to be greater and there is no time for that. ” And he adds that “there are communes in which quarantine has already been carried out and an increase in cases is seen again. If that contagion valve is not closed, all this will become serious, the hospital demand and the need for intensive beds. ”
María Teresa Valenzuela, member of the Advisory Council Covid-19
His peer in the instance, the doctor Catterina Ferreccio, indicates that “A total quarantine is something that must be considered every day, it should not be discarded if we see that infections are not going down.”
Meanwhile, the president of Sochimi, Tomás Regueira, insist on “A call to those who coordinate macro-management to be proactive in opening new beds in hospitals and clinics”. That, to make hospitalization spaces other than ICUs available.
Along these lines, the private sector still has margin. In Indisa Clinic point out that between now and Friday about 40 new beds will be opened, While in the UC Clinical Hospital will add another 35.
The same work is happening in the public network: with the arrival of new respirators – more than are expected in the coming days – hospitals are mandated to generate new quotas for critically ill patients. To this are added additional reinforcements: a modular hospital which began to settle next to the Sótero del Río and hiring 7,200 people to serve the units.
Similarly, Piñera acknowledged that “we are concerned and busy” and reiterated – after questioning the idea of ”new normality” – that “we are not going to fall into any kind of false confidence or absurd triumphalism. We are not going to lower our arms or stop being always alert ”.
In La Moneda they assure that the words of the Head of State respond to the concern that exists in the government on the increase in the number of infections, due to impact on the healthcare network.
The issue was discussed yesterday at the meeting of the crisis committee of the pandemic that Piñera is leading. In the Palace they emphasize that the first week of May they started with the increase in cases and an average number of active infections close to a thousand. In this sense, they emphasize that three weeks later the impact on the network will be seen, that is, close on May 21.
In this scenario, the government is Analyzing decree quarantines in more communes. Yesterday was published on Minsal’s last epidemiological report, which was being analyzed in detail, according to the government, by the Undersecretary of Health, Paula Daza. The communes that watch their evolution with attention, being one of the largest, are Maipú, Pudahuel, Las Condes and Providencia.
Despite pressure from mayors and opposition parliamentarians to decree total quarantine in the RM, the government affirms that this is unlikely, but that if the numbers of infections justify it, a quarantine could be decreed in urban Santiago, which encompasses 34 communes. total.
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