Chile with less than 10,000 daily cases of covid for the first time since January

Santiago de Chile, 15 Mar Chile recorded less than 10,000 new cases a day on Tuesday, a figure that has not been seen since last January and which shows the decline of the pandemic in the country, where more than 95% of the population has at least three doses of the vaccine. Health authorities reported that in the last 24 hours 8,716 new infections of covid-19 and 34 deaths were detected, leaving the total balance since the beginning of the pandemic at more than 3.3 million infections and 44,039 deaths. “The variation in newly confirmed cases nationally is - 20% and - 37% for the comparison of seven and 14 days, respectively,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement. The national positivity rate, which a few weeks ago was around 30% due to the contagious omicron variant, was 15.4% and the regions with the highest index were the southern ones Ñuble, O'Higgins, La Araucania and Biobío. In January and February, Ómicron shot the infections to numbers never seen before in the pandemic, approaching 40,000 infected daily. For the past two weeks, new cases have been declining, but patients in intensive care units remain close to a thousand, the vast majority without the full vaccination schedule. Chile is one of the countries with the most restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, with a mandatory mask indoors and outdoors, a vaccination card to access certain spaces and activities and with strict protocols for foreign tourists. The measures have not changed but, since the arrival of omicron, the authorities have reduced capacity in most regions, a restriction that is beginning to loosen in some cities, including the capital. CHIEF mmm/pnm/jrh