Chilean health authorities announce a blanket lockdown across the capital, Santiago, despite having fully vaccinated more than half its population.
On a per capita basis among larger countries, it is the vaccination leader in the Americas and the fifth-highest worldwide, according to Reuters data.
Vaccines are not 100 per cent effective, medical experts pointed out, and there is a time lag before they reach their highest efficacy. Of 7,716 people confirmed as infected with COVID-19 between Wednesday and Thursday, 73 per cent had not been fully inoculated and 74 per cent were under 49 years old, the health ministry said.Dr Cesar Cortes, emergency physician at the University of Chile hospital, said people who stayed home last year were now more afraid of being without work.
Chile's health regulator, the ISP, said genome sequencing of infections between December and June had confirmed the Brazilian P1 variant, also known as Gamma, was the most prevalent in the country and "twice as contagious as the original strain".Chile is now vaccinating teenagers, having offered jabs to older age groups.
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