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The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, linked this Friday the increase in Covid-19 infections that the country now registers the parties organized during the summer by some groups of wealthy people who did not respect sanitary measures.
The authority thus responded to the statements of the president of the Medical College (Colmed), Izkia Sichez, who stated that the vacation permit issued by the Government in February “It was a mistake” which is now being paid.
This permit was aimed at those people who lived in cities with mobility restrictions due to the pandemic, such as Santiago, so that they could go out and “face pandemic fatigue,” according to the minister at the time.
“The permit is not the cause of the increase in cases. The causes of the increase in cases were that, during the holidays -and not just the most humble people-, parties were organized, the curfew was not respected, people gathered, they did not wear a mask, they drank alcohol, they freed themselves. That is what produced this increase in cases, “said Paris.
“For people who have less money, who had the opportunity to go out for two or three days, who live in a small, overcrowded apartment, I think it was very good for them to go out from the mental point of view,” added the minister, who This Friday he went to have the second dose of the Sinovac vaccine inoculated.
Also, Paris said that the measure of granting a vacation leave was “very well evaluated” at the time by Colmed himself, a body that, he recalled, said “that there was mental fatigue and that it was good that people could go out.
“Perhaps the mistake was not having an obvious risk communication to give the people who took that permission the necessary instruction so that they could maintain in their place of vacation the measures that they maintained in their places of origin, “said the minister.
Chile is currently suffering the ravages of summer, which in February has its peak month and has plunged the country into a second wave of Covid-19, with an average of 4,000 daily cases since the end of that month and with several peaks of more than 5,000.
The authorities reported this Friday of 5,983 new infections, the highest figure since June 19, 2020, when the pandemic hit the country most virulently, bringing the total to 879,485 since the arrival of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, with 89 new deaths, the total deaths amounted to 21,451.
In parallel, Chile carries out a successful vaccination process, being at the moment the country in the world that is inoculating the fastest, with more than 4.6 million people who have received a dose, which is equivalent to 24 percent of the total population of the country and about 31% of the population target who can receive the vaccine.
