Chile

Contact: Eduardo A. Undurraga (eundurra@uc.cl) y Pedro E. Pérez Cruz (peperezc@gmail.com)

Chile has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection worldwide, with a cumulative incidence rate of about 1960 cases per 100.000 inhabitants as of August 11, 2020. The Ministry of Health has led the national strategy to face the pandemic, largely focused in increasing health system capacity, such as the availability of beds and mechanical ventilation, and expanding testing capabilities. Both public and private laboratories, including research laboratories from universities, have substantially increased COVID-19 PCR tests processing volumes, from a few hundred tests per day to up to 28,000 per day (cumulative of about 100 tests per 1000 pop). The Ministry of Health implemented a unified centralized system to manage public and private hospital COVID-19 cases. Most non-pharmaceutical interventions, from individual-level recommendations (e.g., wearing face masks, maintaining physical distance) to society-level regulatory actions (e.g., school closures, border control), to prevent and control transmission have been implemented at the national level. Stay-at-home orders and other mobility restrictions have been implemented at the sub-national level (regions, cities, or municipalities), based on case incidence, changes in transmission, and health-system capacity.  COVID-19 control strategies are defined by the Ministry of Health, not by local governments.

Public Policy Adoption Index

What is a Public Policy Index? It’s a measure of how many public policies a country has adopted to control the pandemic. The higher the number, the more policies a country has adopted. Our index is based on an index created by Oxford University. We track 9 public policies intended to help control the pandemic. These policies include the closing of schools and non-essential businesses, and stay-at-home orders, among other policies. Measures are weighted based on the date when they were implemented, and on how long they’ve been in place. The black dashed line represents the weighted average of all the states in the country.

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    Change in mobility

    Estimates based on Google data. These graphics show the change in population mobility in each state, compared to the usual mobility in the same time period (identified as the 0 baseline.) A decrease in mobility might also decrease the likelihood of community spread. The black dashed line represents the weighted average of all the states in the country.

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      Use of face masks

      Index of the public health policy directive on the use of face masks, adjusted for the day of implementation compared to the registration of the first case in the country.

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