Date Published: 15/01/2021
ARCHIVED - Over 40,000 new cases in 24 hours; highest Covid figures for Spain since pandemic began
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The accumulated incidence rate also hit a record high at 575 per 100,000 inhabitants
Friday was not a good day for Spain, with a second day of record-breaking Covid-19 detection as the total of new cases diagnosed hit 40,197 cases within a 24 hour period, the worst day ever reported.
This follows hot on the heels of the high figures published on Wednesday, when the previous record of 38,869 was reported, followed on Thursday by another 35,000.
This surge in new cases has pushed the accumulated incidence rate up from 522 to 575 cases per 100,000 of population in a single day, reaching a new height, unsurpassed even during the worst weeks of the second wave when the maximum level was 529 on the 9th November.
The rise in new cases is generalised right across Spain and the AI rate has grown significantly in all autonomous regions. All of the regions of Spain except the Canary islands are now classified as being at the “extreme risk” level using the “EU traffic light system”, and rising cases, hospitalisations, deaths and a frantic imposition of new restrictions are present in every region.
The accumulated incidence rate per region over 14 days per 100,000 of population is as follows; Extremadura 1220, Murcia 889, Castilla-La Mancha 780, Comunidad Valenciana 760, La Rioja 738, Madrid 698, Castilla y Léon 696, Balearic Islands 637, Melilla 563, Cataluña 561, Aragón 506, Andalucía 463, Ceuta 402, Galicia 392, Navarra 338, Cantabria 336, Basque Country 306, Asturias 257, Canary Islands 163, so regardless of population size, this method of calculation lists the regions from worst to best based on their population percentage, not number of inhabitants . Click for original source data
Hospitalisations:
There are 19,657 patients in Spanish hospitals with coronavirus, a level of admissions last seen only in the worst days of the second wave in the first half of November.
15.69% of all beds are occupied by covid patients, but in the intensive care units the pressure is increasing significantly, with 29.56% occupancy, accounting for 2,963 UCI patients, a rise of 1% in the last 24 hours alone.
2,816 patients have been admitted in the last 24 hours, increasing the pressure considerably.
Some areas are much worse affected than others; The Valencia Region has 48% occupancy of its intensive care bed capacity full, La Rioja 45%, Cataluña 42%, Balearic Islands 41%, Madrid 37%,Castilla La Mancha 35%. Other regions have lower figures, such as Murcia with 21%, but the regional health authority maintains that this occupancy figure is calculated based on the potential availability of post-surgical beds, which are not normally used for ICU patients and its occupancy is as high as these other regions.
The situation however, is now deteriorating rapidly and is exacerbated by the fact that the new contagions are being detected at an unprecedented speed, obviously having occurred during key days of the festive season. This is expected to compound the pressure on the health system as the admissions are following on from the contagions, en-bloc.Hospitals are bracing themselves for a tsunami of admissions in the next few days as the cases being detected now turn into hospitalisations, a process which normally takes around a week.
Fatalities continue to slowly increase, with 235 deaths confirmed during the last 24 hour period, bringing the total fatalities up to 53,314.
Today the world officially passed the 2 million deaths mark according to the John Hopkins University which lists the highest deaths worldwide as follows: USA 390,649, Brazil 207,095, India 152,918, Mexico 137,916, UK 87,448, Italy 81,325, France 70,088, Russia 63,558, Iran 56,621, Spain 53,314
And 93 million cases; USA 23 million, India 10 million, Brazil 8 million Russia 3.4 million, UK 3.3 million and lower down the list Spain, the additions of today taking the total to 2, 252,164.