Chile records over 7K new Covid cases for 2nd day in a row

According to the Health Ministry's daily pandemic report, the new cases brought the country's confirmed caseload to 1,315,913 since the onset of the outbreak here in March 2020, Xinhua news agency reported.

Of the new cases, 1,943 presented no symptoms, said Paris, adding only four regions in the country saw a decline in cases over the last seven days, while nine regions saw a decline over the last 14 days.

Chile also registered 121 more deaths from causes associated with Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the pandemic death toll to 28,290.

On Thursday, the ministry announced that lockdown will be lifted in 13 towns starting Monday and officials will continue to gradually ease pandemic restrictions across the country, despite reporting 7,680 new cases of Covid-19, the highest number since April, the same day.