FILE PHOTO: A worker with a tattoo reading 'Life is beautiful' checks a person's temperature as preventive measure at the entrance to a reopened commercial center, following the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Santiago, Chile April 30, 2020. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
The tally puts Chile fourth for confirmed cases in Latin America, according to a Reuters count, behind Brazil, Peru and Mexico, but just ahead of Ecuador. Health minister Jaime Manalich said in the briefing Monday that the capital Santiago, a city of nearly 8 million and Chile’s economic engine, was under particular stress as cases have spiked.
Seventy percent of the country´s cases are concentrated in Santiago, health ministry figures show. A survey of 122 Chilean hospitals by the Society of Intensive Care Medicine showed 89% of critical care beds in the Metropolitan Region were in use and 78% of ventilators.