MARCH 5, 2020

President Piñera heads meeting with undersecretaries to promote government actions in response to coronavirus

The President outlined measures designed to protect the population and called for adopting preventive measures on an active and ongoing basis.

On Thursday, President Sebastián Piñera led a meeting attended by undersecretaries in which he outlined the measures deployed by the government to combat coronavirus in the country.

The meeting was attended by Health Minister Jaime Mañalich, Minister General Secretary of Government Karla Rubilar, and the undersecretaries of the Interior, Ministry General Secretary of Government, Education, Higher Education, Preschool, Labor, Sports, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Childhood, Transportation, Economy, Tourism, Science, Justice, Women, Cultures and the Arts and Cultural Heritage.

On Tuesday, March 3, the President announced the Government Action Plan to prevent coronavirus contagion. This includes the acquisition of new equipment, reinforcing the healthcare network, introducing migratory controls and introducing a rapid and efficient detection and treatment operation. This comes in addition to the health alert activated last month that allows the Health Ministry to access more resources and powers to respond to coronavirus.

Likewise, supplies for handling the virus such as gloves, masks and disinfectants have been acquired. The public and private healthcare networks are also being prepared for the prevention as well as rapid diagnosis and treatment of the illness. This includes 50 specialized hospitals and 12 laboratories nationwide.

To date, three cases of coronavirus have been detected in the country.


Fourth case of coronavirus in Chile
This afternoon, the Health Ministry reported that a 40-year-old is the fourth person to be confirmed to have coronavirus COVID-19 in the Metropolitan Region. The information was provided by the Public Health Institute of Chile (ISP).

The person entered the country on February 29 after visiting Italy, which has a community outbreak of the illness. The patient sought treatment at a private health center after presenting symptoms associated with a respiratory illness. The care protocol was activated based on the patient’s travel history.

The person is in good overall health and was sent home and will remain under epidemiological surveillance.