Despite the fact that the accumulated incidence of the coronavirus in the last seven days is already decreasing in Catalonia, the situation in hospitals and ucis continues to be “critical”, as the director of the Public Health Agency of Catalonia acknowledged this Monday at a press conference (Aspcat), Xavier Llebaria.
“With such a high number of infections [41,000 a week], we believe that until the end of this week or the next we will not notice a slowdown in income in conventional plants. And, until well into August, in ucis,” he said.
23 DEATHS
Those admitted to ucis exceed 500 in Catalonia
Catalonia has already passed its peak of new daily infections . There is already an average of 13.5% less than with respect to weeks ago. However, 41,000 weekly infections are still many. And, therefore, in terms of healthcare data, Catalonia is “facing a critical situation”, in the words of Llebaria. “In primary care, we continue with a very important volume of activity, although it begins to decrease very slightly,” he explained.
Two weeks ago, the CAPs detected 50,000 weekly cases, now 31,000. The CUAP, 10,000 weekly cases. But the positivity of the tests in primary school is 47%: very high if one takes into account that the WHO considers that, above 5%, the epidemic is uncontrolled.
Hospital occupation
Also hospitals, whose emergency services are reaching fewer ‘covid cases’, maintain very high activity related to the pandemic. In all Catalan hospitals, there are 2,217 people admitted for the virus this Monday , and another 130 pending confirmation, which represents 23% of the total beds. The average of these patients is 59 years.
In the ucis, there are today 512 people with the virus and 380 for other reasons. Catalonia has reported 43 admissions for covid-19 in the last 24 hours. The 54% of patients in ICUs have coronavirus. The average of these patients is 54 years.
As explained by the assistant director of the Hospital Vall d’Hebron, José Manuel Domínguez, on Friday to EL PERIÓDICO, the profile of the patient admitted for covid-19 in hospitals and ucis throughout this fifth wave has begun to change in some hospitals. If a few weeks ago, from Sant Joan, mainly young people entered, now more and more they are contagious and the “parents” of these young people enter.
They are, fundamentally, middle-aged people, between 40 and 60 years old, who are not vaccinated or who have only one dose. “The double vaccine protects against serious disease. The people who enter ICU are people either not vaccinated or with a single dose.”
Sanctions
Together with Llebaria, the spokesman for the Mossos d’Esquadra, Joan Carles Molinero, explained that last weekend the police force issued 1,411 records of administrative sanction, twice as much as the previous one. Most were due to non-compliance with mobility restrictions. There were 912 minutes for not respecting the night confinement and another 150 for not using the mask. The others got up for failing to comply with capacity, schedules or making bottles in public space.
According to Daniel López-Codina, researcher at the Group of Computational Biology and Complex Systems (Biocomsc) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), “at the beginning of August, the first week, the decreases in hospitalizations and ucis should be seen”. “But the most important thing is that we realize that the pandemic continues. If we relax the measures, we will have growth again,” he says.
The contagions, down
New infections, in all age groups, are already declining. “The problem is that the unvaccinated have dragged the vaccinated. They have infected their environment,” explains López-Codina. This explains why there have been strong increases in infections in those over 50 and even over 70.
However, the increases in these age groups have been “much lower” than in those aged 15 to 30, the population that is not vaccinated. “The vaccine protects – insists this researcher from Biocomsc-. It is not 100% effective, but infections in vaccinated people have been contained by immunization.”
As López-Codina explains, if this number of infections had occurred without the vaccine, a new home confinement would have had to be decreed again . “It would have been a huge catastrophe. The infections in vaccinated people have grown, but they have been contained.
With such a high situation of the virus, it is impossible that there is no growth, but in the vaccinated bands it has been very small next to other age bands “, insists the Biocomsc researcher.
