SANTIAGO: Chile will strengthen the health system in the country’s southernmost Magallanes province, which has been grappling with a severe novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the Health Ministry’s undersecretary of assistance networks, Arturo Zuniga, said Monday.
Remote and lightly populated, the region has registered between 200 and 250 daily cases of infection, which is tantamount to “having 18,000 daily cases nationwide. That is a lot,” said Zuniga.
To attend to the situation, last week the government shipped medical equipment there, including 21 high-flow oxygenation machines.
In Punta Arenas, the capital of Magallanes, a fourth reinforcement team of technicians, nurses and doctors arrived to support the work of healthcare workers at the local hospital, which is close to being fully occupied.
Already, Magallanes has transferred four patients from the region to the capital Santiago.
The mayor of Punta Arenas, Claudio Radonich, told local media, “many neighbors have lost their lives during this black September. This is dangerous and people do die.
That is why we require a change in behavior.”
According to the Ministry of Health, nationwide in the last 24 hours, 58 more COVID-19 patients died, raising the death toll to 13,037.–Agencies
