[ad_1]
The Dean of the Usach School of Medicine and former Minister of Health, Helia Molina, referred this Wednesday regarding the measures and figures of the Covid-19 in the country that “I believe that there is an under-registration of deaths,” and stated that the number of infections is also estimated in higher numbers than those reported.
As he explained to the Double Space magazine of the School of Journalism of the University of Chile, “the coronavirus produces symptoms in only 25% of infected people. Of 100 people who get it, 25 have symptoms and 75 do not. “
“Imagine that if we are at this moment with more than 25 thousand people who have tested positive and who have consulted in hospitals, these figures must be calculated at least four times to have the really infected. Why mass testing is not being done: some contacts are being made, but primary care is not being used, massive inquiries are not being made to all the contacts and the absolute figures that appear are only the Covid-19 positives, “he said.
“Obviously,” he said, “they know that for every Covid there must be four or five who are not symptomatic, and who have not been tested either.”
Under-registration of deaths
Regarding death records, he said, “I think there is an underreporting of deaths, since the lethality, which is the percentage of death derived from the Covid-19, does not consider older adults who have died in nursing homes, at home or bedridden. ”
“The PCR is not done: they die and root causes such as diabetes or heart attacks are established. Serious patients may arrive in a hospital. It is possible that in less than 24 hours they die: they are obese or have some underlying pathology. And the death certificate says that the cause was one of those factors, because the examination of the Covid-19 takes more than 24 hours to reach the hospitals, and many deaths do not appear in the system as Covid-19, “said the doctor.
However, he recalled, “it must be considered that in Chile, for reasons that we will have to analyze, the percentage of infected older adults is much lower than in other countries. We have more young people, under 60 years old, and in other countries this has been concentrated in those over 65 ”.
“In Chile, only 15% of those who have been infected and who are in hospitals are older adults, and that also has to do with the lowest case fatality,” explained Molina.
Another factor to which he attributed the figures is that “We have a good health system -very good intensive care units, very good doctors-, so we are doing well so far, because the health systems are not yet collapsed. ”
[ad_2]
