Chile does not plan to remove masks in an America with 80 million cases

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Chile continues to maintain its pandemic measures and does not renounce the permanent use of masks despite advances in vaccination due to the presence of the Delta variant, which continues to be the most contagious in an America that already has 80.2 million infections.

According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), 2.05 million deaths have already been recorded in the Americas.

CHILE REFUSES TO SUSPEND FACE MASKS

The country that has stood out for one of the most successful immunization campaigns globally, reaching more than 83% of the target population with two doses and almost 89% with one injection, will not discontinue the use of the mask outdoors.

“We have not evaluated suspending the use of the mask (outdoors), but on the contrary, it should continue to be used and in the correct manner,” said Chilean Health Minister Enrique Paris.

Paris also declined to change the starting time for curfew from 10 PM to 12 midnight in Santiago, because the capital still does not have 80% of the target population with the complete vaccination schedule, one of the required criteria.

In the last 24 hours, 754 new cases of Covid-19 and 40 deaths were registered, which brings the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 1.62 million infected and 36,420 deaths in the country.

DECLINES IN FLORIDA AFTER TWO WEEKS

The United States continues to lead the world in the number of infections with 36.8 million cases and 622,233 deaths, although the number of people hospitalized for covid-19 in Florida fell for the first time in two weeks.

Even so, the number of patients with the disease in Intensive Care Units (ICU) increased. According to official data released Monday, there were 15,985 covid-19 patients admitted to Florida hospitals on Sunday.

This is in the midst of a plan being developed by the U.S. government to start offering booster doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, something that could happen as early as this fall, according to information obtained by The New York Times.

The media, which state that its sources are people with knowledge of the initiative, points out that if a third dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were to be administered, the first would go to people in nursing homes and health care workers.

PERU AND THE IMPENDING THIRD WAVE

Peru, which already has 2 million cases and almost 200,000 deaths, maintains the alerts before the cases by the delta variant, which have risen by 40% in the last week, after adding 31 new infected in Lima and accumulating 105 at a national level, according to the Ministry of Health on Monday.

The health ministry said that the “sustained increase of cases” of this variant would most likely lead to the third wave of infections in the country.

At present, there are already 105 infected patients nationwide, distributed in eight regions, although most cases were reported in Lima (39), where a third of the country’s population lives.

ALMOST 3 MILLION FIRST DOSES IN BOLIVIA

According to the Ministry of Health, Bolivia is already close to 3 million people who received the first dose of vaccines, after reaching 2,989,471.

The vaccination, which began at the end of January, has also achieved the application of 2,046,562 second doses with immunizers such as Sinopharm and Sputnik V managed by the Government and those that arrived through the United Nations Covax mechanism such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Janssen.

“It is a joy that more than 5 million vaccines have already been applied to our Bolivian sisters and brothers. So far, more than 2 million people received the complete vaccination scheme of one or two doses,” the country’s president, Luis Arce, wrote on Twitter.