Health workers transport a COVID-19 patient at San Jose Hospital in Santiago, Chile, May 20, 2020. (Photo by Jorge Villegas/Xinhua)
Chile's outbreak began slowly but has recently picked up pace, leading authorities to extend lockdown measures past their end of May deadline to June 5, especially in the capital Santiago and metropolitan area, home to 7 million people.
SANTIAGO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Chile on Tuesday said a total of 108,686 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the COVID-19 outbreak began, and 1,188 people have died from the disease.
A record 3,527 new cases of infection were detected in the past day, the highest single-day tally yet since the outbreak began here three months ago, and 75 more patients died.
The vast majority of the new cases, 3,206, showed symptoms, while 321 were asymptomatic.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said the government has modified its method of registering COVID-19 deaths to include those people who had yet to receive the results of their tests before they died.
Chile's outbreak began slowly but has recently picked up pace, leading authorities to extend lockdown measures past their end of May deadline to June 5, especially in the capital Santiago and metropolitan area, home to 7 million people. ■