At a time when the South American country exceeded 100 days since the first case was reported in March, the authorities reported a double daily maximum, both in the number of new infections - totaling 160,846 - and the number of deceased recorded in the Civil Registry, according to the new counting method adopted this week.

The situation in our country continues to worsen, especially in the Metropolitan Region, said the undersecretary of care networks, Arturo Zúñiga, when delivering the daily case report.

Contagions in Chile began to rise rapidly in early May and do not subside despite Santiago serving four weeks under mandatory quarantine.

This Friday the cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, 150 km west of the Chilean capital, along with other nearby rural towns, will also be quarantined, leaving nearly half of Chile's 18 million inhabitants under total confinement.

The authorities highlighted this Friday the number of PCR tests (swab) that are performed in the country to detect active cases of coronavirus; in the last 24 hours 18,733 tests were conducted, accumulating to date a total number of 799,776 tests.

With contagion figures that do not budge, the emergency services operate at maximum capacity.

Since the start of the pandemic – the first case reported in the country dates from March 3 – the government centralized public and private health services, where until this Friday 1,391 patients were connected to mechanical ventilation systems, 372 of them in critical condition.

“We have the possibility to continue to increase the mechanical ventilation capacity, according to the requirements of the patients. We have committed purchases that will continue,” said Undersecretary Zúñiga.