@AzulOscuro - thanks for your thoughts. Yeah, they renewed the state of emergency to September. We started state of emergency last October due to the rioting and looting. It was suspended for a bit then reinstated due to COVID.


It really has to do with the poverty here. The virus first came here due to rich people bringing it back from European vacations (February is summer vacation time here). They quarantined some of those areas and things seemed to calm down. We are talking about people that have a decent house or apartment, and can telecommute and order things online for the most part, so it wasn't so bad. The problem is when community spread started in the poorer areas. Think if you are a maid for a rich family, they may not yet know they have the virus but are contagious. You go to work, get exposed, go home, where you live with maybe 8-10 extended family members and they get exposed. There is no way to isolate yourself in those sort of living situations. People in poorer areas here tend to have worse healthcare, so they are more likely to get a serious case due to underlying/untreated health conditions.

Chile likes to present itself as a first world country, but there are many areas, especially in the south of Santiago where people live in these overcrowded conditions. To make it worse, they live day to day, working as maids, gardeners, selling things at markets. If they don't work, they don't eat. I was pretty aware of this because my husband has worked in several such areas, but it appears our government doesn't. Our ex health minister that recently resigned said he had no idea so many people lived like that. They instituted lockdown in these areas four weeks before my area was affected, but many people didn't adhere to it because of the need to work. Financial assistance and food aid are finally being coordinated, but it took a while. They have also set up hotels to receive people who have been exposed, asymptomatic or mildly sick, if they don't have living conditions that allow them to isolate from other household members.


They say that in the richer areas of Santiago, there has been a 70% decline in mobility due to the quarantine. In low-income areas, it is only around 15%, which is not enough to stop the spread.