They investigate the appearance of a Chilean strain of the coronavirus

04/03/2021 2:25 PM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 04/03/2021 2:51 PM

Amid a very worrying increase in coronavirus cases and the high occupancy of intensive care beds, Chilean health authorities are currently investigating the possible

existence of a new strain

.

Chile reported

for the second consecutive day more than 8 thousand new cases

, with 8,028 infections reported in the last 24 hours after the record number of 8,112 patients was reached on Friday.

The authorities take extreme resources by expanding beds in ICUs (intensive therapies), given that the number of people who have required hospitalization reached 2,867 people this Saturday, of which

2,460 are on mechanical ventilation support.

According to information from the Ministry of Health, there are a total of

199 critical beds available

in the integrated Covid network.

The Chilean Minister of Health, Enrique Paris.

Photo: DPA.

Some communes in the Metropolitan region extended the vaccination against the coronavirus to Saturday and Sunday, in order to speed up immunization.

The Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, was asked if there is a "Chilean strain", in addition to the British and Brazilian ones already detected in the country, that explain the rise in infections.

The highest health authority responded that "the Public Security Institute (ISP) is sequencing all suspected variants, with the support of the Ministry of Sciences."

"

So far two have been detected

and from next week 500 samples will be sequenced - double what was done up to now - to detect new strains that may explain this increase in infections," he explained.

With the 8,028 new cases this Saturday, 1,019,478 SARS-CoV2 patients have been confirmed in the country, of which 44,584 remain active, that is, carriers of the virus that are capable of transmitting it.

The Department of Statistics and Information of the Ministry of Health (DEIS) confirmed 103 deaths from causes associated with the coronavirus, bringing the number of victims of the pandemic to 23,524 people.

For comparison, on Saturday of last week there were 66 deaths registered by the relevant agencies and 7,588 reported infections.

The laboratories reported the results of 70,458 PCR tests, which yielded a national positivity of the last 24 hours of 11.09%, while the positivity in the Metropolitan region was 12%.

On whether there is a

collapse in the country's emergency system

, after the press found that ambulances must wait to leave patients, the Health Minister said he did not know that there was waiting in ambulance care services.

The Undersecretary of Healthcare Networks, Alberto Dougnac, pointed out that "there are 3,900 intensive beds, which implies enormous pressure on the emergency services," however, he stressed that "we have a protocol to derive the emergency systems from which has allowed us not to see the clogging that occurred last year ", alluding to the first wave of June 2020.

In this second wave, the emergencies urge the cases of

young adults who must be intubated

given the ferocity with which the virus has attacked them.

Health personnel are not only physically exhausted but also extremely emotionally tired.

With information from Ansa.

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