Date Published: 12/09/2020
ARCHIVED - 448 new cases and one death; Murcia Covid Saturday 12th
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
This is the third consecutive day with more than 400 cases
For the third consecutive day the Region of Murcia reported more than 400 positive covid cases on Saturday 12th September, the Saturday figure of 448 new cases just 8 cases less than the highest total recorded to date on Thursday and ten more than the Friday total of 438.
On Friday 4th September the Murcia region had 4,432 active cases.
On Friday 11th September the total had risen to 5,669 cases, a rise of 1237 in the number of cases ACTIVE in the last week.
If we go back a month, there were only 1081 active cases on 11th August, so the number of cases actually active has increased by 4,588 in a month.
A month ago, the total number of cases diagnosed in the region since the start of the pandemic was 4,799; now it's 12,478, a rise of 7,679, INCLUDING rapid tests (1706 in total from the start of the pandemic which are not included as cases).
For a region our size, this is a substantial increase and a substantial number of cases.
Adding in these Saturday new notifications, we now have 5,669 ACTIVE cases in the region and 12,478 cases diagnosed since the beginning of the pandemic.
Of these active cases, all of which have been diagnosed by PCR and are NOT rapid test results as some social media users erroneously maintain, 5,330 patients are in home isolation with mild symptoms and 339 are hospitalised, 60 of them in intensive care.
The distribution of the new cases is generalised, although the same few municipalities continue to dominate the “leader board”.
Lorca has been experiencing growing numbers of cases for the last few weeks, but today reported more cases than Murcia City, in spite of the fact that Murcia has nearly five times the population of Lorca.
Lorca reported 81 new cases for the last 24 hours, followed by Murcia with 70, then Jumilla with 33.
29 are allocated to Cartagena, 29 to Torre Pacheco, 29 to Totana, 22 to Molina de Segura, 19 to Yecla, 10 to Alcantarilla, 9 to Alhama de Murcia, 9 to Caravaca de la Cruz, 9 to Cieza, 9 to San Javier, 8 to Ceutí, 8 to San Pedro del Pinatar, 7 to Archena, 7 to Cehegín, 7 to Mazarrón, and 6 to Mula. The rest are distributed among various locations in smaller quantities.
PCR testing
The regional health authority has started increasing the number of testing points in the region to try and detect the positive cases, thus increasing the number of tests carried out. On Friday the team undertook 3,522 tests, the highest figure to date for a single day, maintaining a rate of around 13% positives, which is well above the level of 4-5% considered to represent a level of “generalised transmission amongst the population” by the WHO.
In layman’s terms, this means that the need to take simple protective measures is greater than ever, as transmission is no longer confined to specific localised outbreaks, but is generalised amongst the population.
As if this level of cases isn´t sufficient deterrent in itself for the population to make intelligent decisions about personal protection.
One death
There was one further fatality reported; an 87 year old man from Murcia City. He is the 13th fatality so far this month and brings the running total up to 173.
Accumulated incidence per 100,000 cases.
The national average for accumulated cases in the last 14 days per 100,000 of the population is 238.94 per 100,000 inhabitants.
This is the most accurate way of measuring how the 17 autonomous regions of Spain are performing taking into account their population, rather than simply reporting a number of cases.
Murcia lies in seventh position nationally, with an average rate of 265.55; above the national average.
Madrid has the highest rate at 550.26, followed by Navarra with 412.71, the Basque Country with 379.01, la Rioja with 367.754, Melilla with 316.81, Aragón with 305.62 and then Murcia. At the bottom of the board are Asturias with 59.84, Galicia with 126.36 and Andalucía with 130.84.