Chile elections postponed due to COVID-19

Chile's President announced his government will officially postpone upcoming government elections because of COVID-19.

Pinera announced Tuesday that Chile's Congress had approved a constitutional petition his government had presented to allow for elections to be postponed, cancelling them for this coming weekend, April 10-11, and moving them to May 15-16.

"(The provision) Allows the elections of constituents, mayors, council or and governors to be postponed for 5 weeks," said Pinera.

Chile is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases and just Monday closed the countries borders in an effort to reduce new cases.

While Chile has vaccinated 35 percent of its population in less than two months, and authorities say there has been a decrease in the admission of older adults to hospital ICUs, COVID-19 cases are surging again.

The South American country has registered 2,870,797 infections and 23,734 deaths resulting from COVID-19.