With 26 votes in favor and 12 against, mainly from the ruling coalition, the Chilean Senate approved the state of emergency. | Photo: Radio U Chile

Santiago de Chile, June 26 (RHC)-- Faced with a worsening health situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chile will extend the state of emergency and reinforce the measures to confront coronavirus infections.

Despite a very controversial context, due to the Government's poor management of the epidemic, the Chilean Senate approved the Cabinet's request to extend for 90 days, until September 30, the state of catastrophe exception that has been in force since 2020.

The measure had been previously approved by the Chamber of Deputies, but in the vote of the two legislative bodies it stood out that most of the votes against the measure came from the congressional representatives of the ruling coalition, Chile Vamos.

In this sense, the right-wing parties announced that their vote to approve the state of emergency would depend on the modification of the Step by Step plan, which includes modifications to the curfew and the granting of greater freedoms to the citizens.

On the other hand, the Minister of the Interior Rodrigo Delgado and the Minister of Health, Enrique París said that changes would be made to this plan and that they would be announced the following week, without giving further details.

In Chile, it was also announced the entry of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is said to be more aggressive than those previously seen, causing the scientific community to sound the alarm.

Therefore, health authorities reported a reinforcement of border controls to prevent the entry of travelers or other variants.   However, measures were announced to reduce confinement and lift the quarantine as from next Tuesday in some 30 municipalities, including 24 in Santiago de Chile, something that specialists see as contradictory.