Global perspectives on Covid-19 vaccination - Covid-19 vaccination in Chile

This study is part of the series "No one is safe until everyone is safe - Global perspectives on Covid-19 vaccination" by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's European Union and Washington, DC offices.

The illness identified as SARS-CoV-2, known also as the coronavirus or COVID-19, has become Chile’s most consequential public health challenge in a century. The country had its first case on 3 March 2020, and by the following 13 March the government was announcing measures to face the emerging health crisis, just as the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic, in conformity with the International Health Regulations. Chile’s measures included guidance regarding, among other items, education, health (sick leaves, diagnoses, hospital capacity, partial and spatially targeted lockdowns), mass events, border controls, supply and transportation.

Since then, the evolution of the disease in the country has been similar to that of other countries around the world, with periods when cases increased followed by periods when cases declined, yet without ever declining to a point when one would assume the emergency was over. In order to understand the process Chile has been going through, first it is necessary to review the country’s sociopolitical and institutional contexts, as they have been highly influential in bringing about the results achieved to this date.