MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

COVID-19 starts decline in Chile, minister says

People dying with Omicron were mainly over 70 years of age and unvaccinated, Paris pointed out

Chile's Health Minister Enrique Paris Monday said contagion of COVID-19 had already rached its peak Feb. 11 when 38,446 new cases were recorded, but it has been dropping ever since.

Paris also explained that for 9 days there has been a decline, which “is tantamount to 20,000 fewer cases in the course of a week.” Hence, a sustained drop in cases is already beginning to be noticed.

“We consider, and in this obviously there are different opinions and we respect them, that the peak occurred on Friday, February 11, when we had 38,446 new cases,” Paris said.

Regarding the most serious cases of COVID-19, Paris also said that once patients got sick, the most serious ones took “between 14 and 15 days to be hospitalized and sometimes, unfortunately, to die.”

“However, we are seeing that this increase or this number of cases is stabilizing and we are even noticing a slight decrease, which is going to be much clearer a week from now,” Paris added.

According to health authorities, of the 1,005 coronavirus patients admitted into ICUs, 835 were in serious condition and connected to mechanical ventilation support (83.08%).

“Those who enter the ICU today and also die, are those patients who are over 70 years old, have comorbidities or their vaccination schedule is incomplete,” explained Paris.

Paris has insisted since last week the worst part of Omicron was over. ”Last Friday (Feb. 4) I had thought that it was the peak, because we had 37,468 cases, but last Friday (Feb. 11) we had 900 more cases. For today, the drop is quite important, 4,329 fewer cases and also today 10 regions decrease to seven days and four regions to 14 days,” explained Paris.

He also specified the 7-day was equivalent to 5%, while the 14-day assessment still showed an increase of 37%.

The minister also highlighted the fact that the number people over the age of 70 who had been hospitalized with Omicron had tripled in the last 24 days. (ICU). “Those over 70 reach 40.45% of those hospitalized in the ICU and, unfortunately, most of those who have died at this time are over 70 years of age,” Paris had said last Friday.

He added that the average age of the deceased “has increased enormously and 78% of the deceased in the last period are over 70 years old,” and up to 63% of them were unvaccinated.