The leftist government of Chile announced on Monday it would begin handing out free sanitary masks in public transportation on Monday, a week after mandating the use of face coverings for everyone over five years of age in schools.
Chile is currently experiencing a wave of various respiratory infectious diseases, the vast majority of which are not being diagnosed as cases of Wuhan coronavirus – the illness for which Chile, and many other nations, first began mandating mask usage. The disease of primary concern at the moment is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which causes mild illness in adults but could cause severe illness and death in children. Other pathogens circulating at a more minor level are adenovirus, which causes a form of common cold, influenza, parainfluenza, and the Wuhan coronavirus, though the latter is reportedly being diagnosed as lower rates than the others.
Chile’s President Gabriel Boric speaks during an event to present the National Lithium Strategy in Antofagasta, Chile, on April 21, 2023. (GLENN ARCOS/AFP via Getty Images)
As a Southern Hemisphere country, Chile will enter the month of winter on Wednesday. Given colder temperatures and more time spent indoors, contagious respiratory diseases tend to circulate more rapidly in winter months.
Chile lasted less than a year – 255 days – without a mask mandate of any sort between the end of the mask mandates for Wuhan coronavirus and the ones imposed in schools last week.
The government of Chile, under radical leftist President Gabriel Boric, is highly unpopular and facing sinking approval ratings. A poll by the firm Cadem released Sunday showed that the majority of Chileans feel the government was caught unprepared by the current wave of infections and does not trust the government to handle the situation.
“The mask is recommended in places with a high concentration of persons in enclosed spaces,” the Chilean Health Ministry said in a statement on Monday, according to the leftist outlet Telesur, pressuring individuals using public transit to cover their faces, “with reduced interpersonal distance and that, in some cases, is prolonged in longer periods of time without adequate ventilation, a situation that favors greater transmission.
On June 13, the Ministry of Health announced that all individuals over age five would be required to wear masks in schools “given the unusual epidemiological scenario marked by one of the largest RSV outbreaks of the past few years.” The mandate will last through at least August 31, when the current health emergency declaration expires.
In an alarming addendum to the statement, the Ministry of Health also announced that it is advising healthcare centers to suspend “elective” surgeries to make room for more patients.
Chilean Health Minister Ximena Aguilera asserted in an interview on Monday that Chile’s current RSV situation is “the largest outbreak in the history of our country,” attempting to explain overcrowding in Chilean hospitals that has affected access to healthcare for citizens.
“El brote de Virus Sincicial que tenemos actualmente, ha sido el más alto de toda la historia de nuestro país. Esto ha provocado que el sistema esté sobre demandado y, para dar respuesta, debemos seguir aumentando la capacidad del sistema público”@OSalgadoZepeda en @radiousach pic.twitter.com/6hIHzUbqH8
— Ministerio de Salud (@ministeriosalud) June 19, 2023
As of Monday, 88.6 percent of beds in pediatric critical care facilities nationwide are occupied, about 89 percent in public healthcare facilities and 87.7 percent in private hospitals and clinics, according to the Health Ministry. Last week, when the Ministry announced the school mask mandate, that number was 92.9 percent for public pediatric centers and 93 percent for private ones.
The outbreak, along with several other scandals, have damaged Boric’s public support, which has remained low since his razor-thin victory in the 2021 presidential election. The Cadem poll published on Sunday, which the firm conducts weekly, found Boric’s approval rating at 30 percent, three points down from the past week. His disapproval rating remained high at 65 percent.
Respondents indicated little confidence in his ability to handle the current health situation. Asked, “do you approve or disapprove of the way the government is handling the respiratory virus health crisis?,” 71 percent disapproved. Aguilera, the health minister, also received 50 percent disapproval.
The new poll showed the effective erasure of a mild bump in the polls for Boric following his annual public address, the equivalent of the American State of the Union, in early June, when his approval rating soared to 41 percent. Cadem has documented approval ratings for Boric in the low 30s or high 20s since October. The lowest points in his presidency in the past year have come following his announcement that he would reform the Chilean pension system in November, when his approval rating dropped to 25 percent, and when he issued a blanket pardon of various violent criminals in January, when it also dropped to 25 percent.
Boric’s approval ratings have remained significantly below those of his predecessors, “center-right” President Sebastián Piñera and socialist President Michelle Bachelet, though Piñera’s approval ratings ultimately dropped to around ten percent during the leftist riots at the end of his term.
In addition to the respiratory disease crisis – which has already seen Boric fire at least one senior official, Subsecretary of Assistance Networks Fernando Araos – Boric has faced a series of other embarrassing incidents. Last week, unknown individuals leaked audio of an off-the-record conversation between Boric and lawmakers; while the conversation’s contents were not especially outrageous, Boric can be heard on the tape warning, “I hope nobody is recording me,” then refusing to confiscate attendees’ phones despite they offering to hand the phones over, saying, “I trust you.”
In May, Boric got stuck in a kiddie slide at a playground.
🇱 | ATENCIÓN: El Presidente de Chile, Gabriel Boric; se queda atrapado en un tobogán para niños. pic.twitter.com/NZ4b9fblyV
— Última Hora Noticias (@UltimaHoraNo) May 7, 2023
Boric broke the slide, resulting in municipal officials having to invest 3,000 Chilean pesos into repairing it. It is not clear why Boric went down the slide or what, exactly, he was doing on the playground.
Municipio de Punta Arenas arregló tobogán que usó Presidente Boric: Costó $3.000https://t.co/yHHdnZnvy6
— T13 (@T13) May 14, 2023
Boric began this week by urging American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift to visit Chile in a video posted to Instagram.