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Today, for the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak, the Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, and the Undersecretary of Assistance Networks, Arturo Zúñiga, made their daily press point outside the Metropolitan Region. After landing on Friday afternoon in Punta Arenas to deliver two new mechanical ventilators and sanitary supplies, today they gave their report from this region that, in addition to having 655 confirmed cases and 8 deaths, exhibits the highest incidence rate. That is, with more infections for every 100,000 inhabitants. In that category, Magallanes (349.9) far exceeds Ñuble (139.8) and La Araucanía (116.7).
What could explain this? According to Mañalich, the answer is in the European tourists of the cruises: “Suddenly a cruise ship arrived here and 2 thousand, 3 thousand people got off, they greeted them, they took photos, they touched the big toe of the Patagonian in the square, one after another, leaving the virus there ”. That, assured the minister, caused a community outbreak with an increase of 40% of the cases every day. The seremi de Salud, Mariela Rojas, also adds as factors to residents who returned to the region from countries with the developing pandemic and the cultural aspects of Magallanes: “here there is high social interaction and family life, mainly within households “
Damián Hurtado, coordinator of the National Confederation of University Professionals of the Health Services of Magallanes (Fenpruss), in his capacity as a kinesiologist at the Clinical Hospital of the region, witnessed this growth. He says that on April 2, the first day after quarantine was decreed the previous day, Punta Arenas had 102 cases. Today the number is 619. Hurtado says that around Easter they had 23 hospitalized patients in the critically ill unit and their maximum capacity was 24. So they had to schedule transfers.
From the Magallanes Health Service they confirm that, to date, they have had to refer 11 patients from the Clinical Hospital to various healthcare centers in the Metropolitan Region. Of that group, seven were Fonasa patients, three affiliated with isapre and one belonged to Capredena. One of them, the service reports, recently passed away.
In his report, Mañalich maintained that the number of new cases in Punta Arenas was decreasing and that measures, such as the quarantine, which will be reviewed next Tuesday, are taking effect: “one has some confidence that the increase in the hospital’s healthcare capacity , from primary care, has meant a relief in the sense that the capacity we have is sufficient to handle this epidemic. ” At the same press point, Undersecretary Zúñiga reported that with recent advances in the region, 140 daily PCR tests could be processed and that the number of beds available at the Clinical Hospital of Punta Arenas is now 30: five times more than that you originally had.
Hurtado, from Fenpruss, has another vision. He explains that for every six patients in the Intensive Care Unit, they need seven trained officials to attend to them. And that is not easy considering the 87 health professionals who are currently infected with the virus in the region, in addition to the other 55 who are in preventive quarantine: “what we most need is human resources to be able to have a reserve in the event that greatly increase the number of patients entering our unit or if any of us begins to fall. The stress we are immersed in is exhausting. We need relays to give people more rest time or in the event that someone falls. “
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