⁍ The Magallanes region of Chile is largely a remote, glacier-strewn wilderness dotted with small towns.
⁍ The region has seen cases of COVID-19 spike in September and October following a first wave earlier this year.
⁍ Hospitals are nearing full occupancy in the hard-hit region.
– Health officials in Chile are evacuating sick residents from a remote region of the South American country after a second wave of coronavirus infections this year killed at least 10 people and sickened dozens more, the BBC reports. The outbreak of the disease, which causes vomiting and convulsions, has been traced to a remote area of southern Patagonia near the tip of the South American continent. Researchers say they’ve detected “structural changes” in the virus that may make it more contagious, but they say they don’t think the mutation will make the disease more deadly, Reuters reports. “The only thing we know to date is that this coincides in time and space with a second wave that is quite intense in the region,” a researcher says. “Some of these variables such as cold, wind, are associated with a higher rate of spread in the world.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-chile-mutation/chile-scientists-study-potential-coronavirus-mutation-in-remote-patagonia-idUSKBN26T3F4