International COVID-19 Megathread

[kaoras]

156 cases in Chile now - the number doubled since yesterday -, thankfully no deaths so far, but two people are in a critical state. The borders are being closed, schools and universities are also closed, and things are moving really fast. Several political parties have also expressed their willingness to change the date for the Constitutional Referendum (originally April 26).

One irresponsible b*stard chose not to wait for the results of his test while on the capital and took a flight to the south to take part on a wedding, and sure enough, he had the virus. Dozens have been put on quarantine because of it.

And of course, the government had to be forced by the mayors to close the schools. The airport controls and ""quarantine"" were an absolute joke and there are several reports of positive cases not being counted. The only thing slowing the spread is that the upper-class neighborhoods of Santiago (the principal cluster) might as well be another country.

Edit: Case in point: Health minister said this morning that there were 50 new cases, now the report says there's only 25.

[kaoras]

Chilean government wants to reopen the shopping centers and is going to bring back public employees to work face-to-face, without consulting the expert council that rejects those measures and while we are still at the peak of infections.

Sometimes I want to believe that they are evil, it's easier to swallow than to accept that they are really that stupid.

[kaoras]

How are recoveries being classified in Austria?

Here in Portugal you have to do 2 tests in the space of 48 hours to declared as recovered. That's one of the main reason the number of recoveries in Portugal is quite slow, plus the fact that 85%+ of infected are treated at home and, possibly, many don't even do the 2 final tests to be declared as recovered.

In Chile we count the dead as recovered

[kaoras]

Shopping Centers started reopening yesterday in Chile as daily new cases hit a new record of 888 new infections. Piñera wants to reopen schools at some point in May.

[kaoras]

Shopping Centers started reopening yesterday in Chile as daily new cases hit a new record of 888 new infections. Piñera wants to reopen schools at some point in May.

I guess Piñera wants his approval to become even lower?

He recovered double digits thanks to the right rallying around him. He is at 13-24% depending on the pollster, but approval of its handling remains very negative. He has also floated the idea of canceling the constitutional plebiscite (that was postponed to October) not on health, but on economic grounds (because it adds uncertainty or something and the country will be in a big crisis)

[kaoras]

1427 new cases in Chile, almost triple that the rate of just 3 days ago. 80% of new cases are in the capital Santiago, and the government allowed over 40 thousand vehicles to leave the capital for the long weekend, and Piñera continues to call for a return to work.

[kaoras]

Chile health system is nearing collapse.

New infections are out of control in the capital and the government finally declared quarantine for all the Greater Santiago area, after 27k cases. It previously had tried with "dynamic" and short quarantines just for certain areas, which predictably failed given that the borders between the districts of Santiago are very arbitrary.

Laboratories are running out of the reactive needed for the tests, and Santiago intensive care units are at almost 90% capacity. Today some patients had to be moved to Concepción, a city 500 km south of Santiago. The situation is very dire.

[kaoras]

https://chiletoday.cl/site/health-system-in-santiago-on-brink-of-collapse/

According to the latest numbers from Sochimi, only 3 percent of ICU beds in the entire Metropolitan region are currently available. Out of a total of 1,138 beds, 1,100 are occupied – 833 by Covid-19 patients. On a national level, it’s not much better: 86 percent of the total 2,169 ICU beds are occupied.

Nevertheless, during today’s presser, Mañalich dismissed the idea that the country is facing a possible collapse of the public health system. “We have not reached the debate that we need to decide who gets the last bed or ventilator,” he said. “It might be, however, that in some hospitals two patients need to get connected to the same mechanic ventilator.”

Santiago would have already totally collapsed had they not shipped many patients to other regions, but even that is unsustainable in the long term.

[kaoras]

Chile registered a double record of new cases (+6754) and deaths (+222) and passed France in the number of infections.
And still doesn't look like we have reached the peak!