Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: ICOVID Chile presents before the Senate of the Republic on the state of the pandemic in the country

Since its inception, the purpose of ICOVID Chile has been to generate key indicators that best represent the situation of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the country, with the aim of providing clear and timely information to authorities, the media, citizens and the scientific community to guide decision-making regarding the pandemic and understand its evolution.

ICOVID Chile, an initiative led by the University of Chile , the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Concepción , which each week presents an analysis and data of various dimensions proposed to monitor the pandemic in the country , in a collaboration agreement with the Ministries of Health and Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, presented this Wednesday March 24 in a special session of the Senate of the Republic their data on the state of the health crisis.

Since its inception, the purpose of ICOVID Chile has been to generate key indicators that best represent the situation of the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the country, with the aim of providing clear and timely information to authorities, the media, citizens and the scientific community to guide decision-making regarding the pandemic and understand its evolution.

In the instance, a representative team of ICOVID Chile, made up of the pro-rector of the University of Chile, Alejandro Jofré; the Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Concepción, Andrea Rodríguez; together with Paula Margozzini, epidemiologist and academic from the Public Health Department of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile , presented before the plenary session of the Senate, showing relevant figures and collected in the latest ICOVID Chile report, to help the analysis of the situation of the pandemic in the country.

“If one has a global look at the dynamics of contagions, it is clear that we are going through a critical situation, since both the transmission speed -represented by the R- and the load, are at critical values in almost all regions. In relation to testing at the national level we are better, but there are still regions that are in a critical situation, but there are some that have made progress and are a little better, for example Aysén, which is in a good condition, ” explained the pro-rector during the presentation. from the University of Chile, Alejandro Jofré, who led the story in front of the Senate.

Likewise, the university authority raised the difficulties that have arisen in terms of traceability, where there are still several regions that continue with low levels. “If we look globally at what has happened with traceability, it is that in the critical period of the pandemic during 2020, indeed traceability was in very bad numbers, and then it has been improving until it reaches this level, orange in color, but it has there has been a process of stagnation in traceability and it has been difficult to continue evolving to go globally, at the national level, to the color yellow or green, which would be expected at this point in the pandemic, ” said Pro-rector Jofré.

During the presentation, he realized another point that worries the authorities and one of the most critical today: hospital capacity. “At the national level we are practically at saturation levels (…) It is very worrying because there are almost no spaces left in that dimension, the figures say it: in bed capacity we went from 94% to 95% of occupation in the last week, we are already at the saturation level. The fraction that is ICU COVID went from 64% to 67% (occupancy) in the last week, and hospitalizations grew 11% ” , he explained.