The director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, reports at a press conference on the evolution of the coronavirus pandemic in Spain.Kiko Huesca / EFE
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The momentum of the second wave of the epidemic has moderated this week.
The virus continues to advance: this Thursday 8,959 new cases have been added in the last 24 hours (not counting Murcia, which has had notification problems), but the total increase in transmission has stabilized.
If you look at the number of weekly cases, it has even remitted: it began on Monday with 47,264 positives in the previous seven days and reaches Thursday with 46,371, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Health.
It is the weekly photo.
It does not mean that it has stopped growing, not necessarily a change in trend;
neither the experts nor the ministry itself rule out that it may regain its strength in the next few days, with the return to school and the gradual return from vacation.
In the middle of the wave it is difficult to know where it is going.
The data can also be misleading, as the time lag between symptom development and notification is growing again.
It can reach four days, when in June it was less than two.
This is the result of the increase in infections and greater healthcare pressure, which once again delays the entire process between a sick person and appears in the statistics.
Nothing to do, today, with March and April, when that period stretched to more than a week.
This delay of between two and four days may explain that if you look at the even more general panorama, with the incidence accumulated in the last 14 days, it has grown, albeit slightly, since Monday: it was 205.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. in Spain and on Thursday of 212.9.
Madrid, a third of the positives
The distribution is very uneven by territory.
Madrid continues to concentrate more than a third of the total positives in Spain and its incidence soars to 467 per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks.
They are followed by the Basque Country (363.9) and La Rioja (362.3).
All the others are below 300. The tail is followed by Asturias (51).
Even so, it is above the neighboring countries: Portugal (35.4), United Kingdom (24.6), Germany (19.4) or Italy (25.5).
Yes, it is exceeded by France, which has registered a significant increase in recent weeks and reaches 93.4, less than half, in any case, of the Spanish average.
The pressure on hospitals continues to grow slowly: the occupancy of beds with covid-19 patients remains at 6%, although Fernando Simón, director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), has acknowledged that it is already very close to 7% (the ministry's report does not provide decimals).
Here too there is a great variation between autonomous communities: Madrid also leads this classification with 16%, almost double than on August 20, when Health provided this statistic for the first time.
They are followed by Aragon (12%), the Balearic Islands and the Basque Country (11%).
Madrid will reduce the capacity in terraces, wakes and meetings to contain the virus
Simón has been very cautious this Thursday when it comes to anticipating improvements in the evolution of the figures: “With the data we have, we can say that the evolution seems to be slower than it was.
Where there were high increases it is decreasing.
It may decrease in the next few days, but we must be careful with what we observe and what we detect. "
Simón refers to the possibility of detecting an increasing percentage of cases and that, therefore, the statistics continue to rise.
For the next few days, the director of the CCAES predicts an increase in infections in areas with few cases to which people return from others with more, but believes that in the provinces that already have an important transmission, the return to school and work it's not going to show too much.
One of the tasks of the health authorities in the coming weeks will be to detect whether schools amplify infections.
“If the transmission goes up among the students, but it does so at the same rate as in the community, it means that the schools are not centers.
If you do it at a faster pace, it means that schools can be centers, this will have to be assessed center by center, ”said Simón, who is in favor of opening schools.
Simón has been satisfied with the data of the outbreaks, which show a smaller and smaller size, which in his opinion means that social restrictions (especially meetings and nightlife) are working.
According to Health data, since the de-escalation ended, 3,061 outbreaks have been reported with around 29,500 cases.
79% are of small magnitude, with less than 10 affected.
"The outbreaks with the highest number of cases, some with more than 100, are occurring in leisure areas, among workers in vulnerable situations and in social and health centers," says the ministry report.
Information about the coronavirus
- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic
- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in Spain and in each autonomy
- Download the tracking application for Spain
- Search engine: The new normal by municipalities
- Guide to action against the disease
