No national lockdown was established in Chile, unlike in neighboring Argentina and Peru, although a night curfew was implemented throughout the country.

[7][8] By June 2020, the government confirmed thousands of additional deaths due to COVID-19, including suspected cases where PCR tests were not available.

This fast response was due to signing contracts with multiple providers, a strong public immunization program, and little anti-vaccine sentiment.

[14] Despite the success of the vaccination program the number of cases increased, which has been attributed to early relaxation of restrictions and a false sense of security.

In March 2020, when the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, the country was still facing protests and riots[c] that had begun in October 2019, and the pandemic affected the scheduled 2020 Chilean constitutional referendum, which was rescheduled and held later in the year.

[19][20] A wave of protests sparked in late May, mainly in Santiago, due to food shortages in certain sectors of the population.

[23] On 12 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which first came to the attention of the WHO on 31 December 2019.

[1] On 9 June 2020, the Ministry of Health announced a new process to count the number of fatalities, based on the data recorded by the Civil Registry and Identification Service the day before.

[72] A graphic with the active cases as shown on the official data page of the Ministry, which are based on retroactively adjusted information rather than on daily reports, is also displayed.

[110][111] A few months before the first cases of COVID-19, Chile had a series of massive protests and riots against the government of Sebastián Piñera, known locally as el Estallido social.

On one hand, the government had a difficult and tense relationship with scientists and healthcare professionals, especially the Chilean Medical College, who criticized the lack of transparent data, considered several measures taken as inadequate or belated, and denounced precarious and unsafe conditions for health workers.

[115] Izkia Siches, president of the Chilean Medical College, became a popular figure, becoming one of the politicians with the largest approval rating in several polls.

[129] However, on 19 March 2020, Chilean lawmakers reached an agreement to postpone the referendum until late October as safety concerns around the coronavirus pandemic took precedence over politics.

Several safety concerns were raised for the April 2021 elections due to the large number of ballots and candidates available, which would increase the average time to vote and could potentially generate agglomerations.

[137] According to Juan Valenzuela, sub-director of Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero in Santiago Metropolitan Region there are two hypotheses to explain the sightings.