Chile confirms its first case of Delta variant in woman arriving from the U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Chile confirmed Thursday the first case of the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus in a 43-year-old woman who arrived from the United States and is isolated in the south of the country.

The Chilean Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, indicated during a parliamentary appearance that the patient arrived in Chile with a negative PCR, so it is assumed that she was infected at the U.S. airport from where she traveled.

Both she and her family are currently under observation in the southern city of Talca, where she traveled once the mandatory quarantine for travelers in Santiago ended and where the first case of Covid-19 was also registered on March 3, 2020.

Paris explained that the variant that first emerged in India last October, which has already been detected in neighboring countries such as Peru and Argentina, is “very contagious, very potent” and “increases the capacity for hospitalization and infection”.

The Delta variant is becoming the dominant version of the disease worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is already circulating in at least 92 countries; the W.H.O. warned this week that the relaxation of health prevention measures in many countries could lead to its spread.

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The announcement of the arrival of the Delta variant in Chile took place during the first day of discussion in Parliament of the extension of the state of emergency due to catastrophe, requested by the government, which allows the decreeing of quarantines, curfews, and border closures.

Several parliamentarians, from both the opposition and the ruling party, have already expressed their doubts about extending the measure, which has been in force since March 2020 and expires next June 30.

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In their daily report, the health authorities also announced that the borders would remain closed for 15 more days, until July 14, for tourists, nationals, and foreign residents, except for emergency trips, for which surveillance will be reinforced.

With 3,448 infected and 51 deaths detected in the last 24 hours, Chile has a total of more than 1.52 million infected and 31,797 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

Since March, the country has been going through a second wave of the pandemic, which has put the hospital system close to collapse and forced the entire capital city to be confined once again. However, the vast majority of the suburbs were released from confinement on Thursday.

From Tuesday onwards, large districts of Santiago, such as Providencia, Vitacura, Ñuñoa, or Las Condes, will also be unrestricted.

The wave of contagions occurs even though the country has deployed one of the most successful immunization processes against Covid-19, which today reaches more than 80% of the target population (15.2 out of 19 million inhabitants).

The vaccine developed by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac is the most widely used in Chile, followed by Pfizer/BioNTech, which is more effective in contact prevention and is effective against the Delta variant, as is AstraZeneca.