Southern regions reach new peak of infections and RM improves to April figures

It is a scenario that in mid-June would have been very difficult to visualize. In the latest epidemiological report, which was published last Saturday, September 12, the Metropolitan Region was ranked as the fourth region with the lowest rate of active cases in the entire country, with 68 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants, being surpassed only by Los Ríos (49.5), La Araucanía (46.7) and Aysén (17.7), coincidentally, the only three regions of the country that are in the so-called Phase 4 of the five that contemplate the “Step by Step” plan.

And the capital’s numbers continue to improve. In the daily report this Tuesday, which counted 1,536 new infections, 322 cases were registered in the MRI, a figure that with the exception of August 19 – where there was the same figure – is the lowest for a report of that nature since on April 22, that is, before the strong outbreak that hit Santiago.

But in the south of the country the reality is the opposite. In four of the eight regions between Maule and Magallanes, the peak of daily cases since the start of the pandemic in March has been registered in the last 21 days: Biobío, Los Ríos, Aysén and Magallanes.

And in the remaining four -Maule, Ñuble, La Araucanía and Los Lagos-, at least one of the days in the last week has fallen among the five with the most infections so far this year. For example, in Tuesday’s report La Araucanía reported 99 new infections, its second highest number in the entire pandemic and the highest number for a daily report in 102 days.

Although the rise in recent days is most likely to be fully reflected in the epidemiological reports that will be published during the week, When analyzing the figures of the latest reports, it is evident that there is a general upward trend in the area, compared to the situation that they experienced exactly one month ago.

This, because when looking at the data from the August 10 report at the regional level, six of the eight regions show strong increases, ranging from increases of 37.16% in Maule to a rise of 317.95% in cases in Magallanes.

There are two exceptions: Los Lagos, which a month ago came from a strong outbreak in Puerto Montt, lowered its active cases by 34.64%. And Aysén remained exactly at the same rate, without variations, but that will change in the next report, given that in the last three days – which were not contemplated in the epidemiological report last Saturday – 32 cases were accumulated, almost 20% of all registered in the region since March.

The numbers also allow us to see that there is a different reality in three areas of the country. This, because the Metropolitan Region lowered its active cases in the last month by 20.75%, and the two contiguous regions -Valparaíso and O’Higgins- remained practically the same rate, unlike the scenario of almost generalized increase in the South of the country.

However, the regions with the greatest proportional decline are those in the north of the country. In the area between Arica and Parinacota and Coquimbo, the decreases range from 26.25% in Coquimbo to 61.72% in Atacama, positive figures for an area that experienced a complex outbreak in the previous months.

However, still the rate of active cases is high: except Antofagasta (98.6), the rest of the five regions of this block exceed 100 active cases per 100 thousand inhabitants, and Arica and Parinacota is the second region of the country with the highest figure (197.5), only below Magallanes, which with 719.3 active infections per 100,000 people reached the highest figure for a region since arrival of the coronavirus in Chile.