[ad_1]
The Chilean health authorities reported this Tuesday that they detected the new strain of covid-19 in a Chilean who was in the United Kingdom and who entered the country on December 22, after which they have decreed a ten-day quarantine for all who come from abroad.
(New strain of virus spreads, while Europe begins vaccination).
“We have immediately taken the alert measures and this person is in the hospital to be strictly monitored, as well as his close contacts”, informed the Undersecretary of Health, Paula Daza.
Chile maintains since last December 22 all flights with the United Kingdom suspended, but the passenger, a Chilean national, entered the country that same day on a flight from Madrid, where she made a stopover.
(New strain of coronavirus worries epidemiologists.)
To the patient, who remains asymptomatic, A PCR test was performed when he entered Chile, after which he flew from the capital to the city of Temuco, in the south of the country, where he began a period of quarantine.
The next day he received the test result, which was positive, and subsequently, Authorities decided to analyze the sample at the Public Health Institute, where the sample was sequenced and the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 was identified, Daza added.
“Although we know so far that it is not a more aggressive strain, we do have information on a more contagious variant,” remembered.
The woman, who is in good condition, was transferred this Tuesday preventively to the regional hospital where she is being subjected to an exhaustive follow-up.
His close contacts have also been transferred to the health center. The authorities are tracking the rest of the travelers who were on board the flight from Spain and also the one that transferred the woman from the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in the city of Santiago to Temuco.
MANDATORY QUARANTINE
After the detection of this new strain, the authorities announced that all people coming from abroad must do a mandatory ten-day quarantine that It can only be waived when the results of a PCR test performed after the seventh day of confinement are received.
On December 22, The authorities suspended all direct flights from the United Kingdom and decreed a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all Chileans and foreigners who had already entered Chile from that country.
With more than 603,000 total infections since March and about 16,500 deaths, Chile has experienced in the last two weeks a second wave of infections with an increase of more than 30% in the number of cases that has returned it to figures that were not registered since June, when it was on the verge of sanitary collapse. The country is in a state of emergency due to catastrophe until March and with a curfew between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m..
EFE
