Health workers collected blood samples from a patient admitted for coronavirus on January 13 on the fifth floor of the Covid Hospital Reina Sofía de Murcia.Marcial Guillén / EFE
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The third wave of the coronavirus continues to set records in Spain.
The Ministry of Health has notified 84,287 new positives this Monday, the largest increase in a weekend in the entire pandemic.
The previous mark was broken a week ago: then there were 61,422 diagnoses.
Fernando Simón, director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), has predicted that we are reaching the peak of this third wave, although he has acknowledged that after the delays of the weekend it will be necessary for the figures to be consolidated to check if this happens.
Spain has reached its maximum cumulative incidence at 14 days: 689 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, almost three times what is beginning to be considered extreme risk (250 cases, although this depends on other indicators).
Simón's forecast is based on the fact that, although the transmission of the virus continues to rise, it does so at a slower rate than in previous days.
However, it could continue to grow, albeit more slowly, for days.
And, as he himself has recognized, it could settle on a plateau, instead of starting to descend.
Everything will depend, he assured, on the effect of the measures that most of the autonomous communities began to impose after the Three Kings Day.
That is something that will be verified this week.
As that happens, hospital admissions skyrocket.
Daily hospitalizations far exceed the worst days in November, the occupancy of covid patients in the ward as well (it is 18.6%, compared to 17.28% on November 9, the previous maximum) and that of the ICUs is on the rise very close to the most critical days of the second wave (32.7% versus 32.8%).
Taking into account that even if the cases fell, hospital admissions would still continue to rise, the occupancy in critical beds for November will surely be exceeded.
Growth is generalized throughout Spain, but there are autonomous regions such as Madrid, Extremadura or the Valencian Community in which the rise in hospital pressure is very rapid.
In the latter, field hospitals are already being occupied and the situation is worse than it was in that territory, not in the second wave, but in the first.
It is something that also happens in regions such as Andalusia or Murcia, where non-urgent interventions are having to be postponed due to the occupation of beds for coronavirus patients.
Simón has not ruled out an advance of the curfew demanded by several autonomous communities and that will be debated in the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System next Wednesday.
However, he has assured that "there are alternatives."
The one that has been shown to be the most effective, according to their data, the closing of the interior of the bars, “although it is not popular”, has pointed out.
“The more measures, the more likely it is that the sum of the effects will allow us to control transmission.
If we apply a small number of them well, others are probably not necessary, but if we do not apply them as well as we would like, we will have to apply a set of restrictions so that they have a similar effect ”, he stated.
"We put alternatives on the table and it is the decision makers, the advisers in the inter-territorial council chaired by the Minister of Health who will have to choose the ones they consider most appropriate."
Information about the coronavirus
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