ARCHIVED - Covid incidence rate in Spain is now 22 times higher than a year ago today

Infection is rife among young adults as the strain on health services shows signs of increasing again

The first few days of the peak summer season in Spain have coincided with the wearing of facemasks in most outdoor spaces becoming optional rather than obligatory and with a surge in coronavirus infections, particularly among young adults who have yet to receive their vaccines, and the latest Ministry of Health data, which were published on Tuesday evening, show that the 14-day incidence rate of Covid-19 nationally has shot up again from 204 to 225 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in just 24 hours.

A further 14,137 cases were confirmed yesterday, bringing the total since the pandemic reached Spain to 3.88 million, and the latest increase in the incidence rate comes in sharp contrast to the figures from a year ago: on 7^th July 2020, the reported incidence rate was just 10.01 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

So, to put it in plain English; the Covid rate is now 22 times higher than a year ago, a week after Spain emerged from the first state of emergency and lockdown.

Once again, the latest Ministry update underlines the extent to which new infections are currently concentrated amongst teenagers and young adults, with the incidence rate in the 20-29 age group having reached 717 cases per 100,000 people. In Catalunya the equivalent figure in this group is a discouraging 1,783, and the indicator is also above 1,000 in Cantabria, Asturias and Castilla y León.

The full breakdown of 14-day rates by age groups per 100,000 of population in the Tuesday bulletin is as follows, all of them higher than the previous day:

Age 0-11: 105

Age 12-19: 653 (maximum 2,009 in Navarra)

Age 20-29: 717 (maximum 1,783 in Catalunya)

Age 30-39: 274

Age 40-49: 149

Age 50-59: 79

Age 60-69: 67

Age 70-79: 28

Age 80+: 34

It also remains the case that there is a significant amount of variation in the situation among Spain’s 17 regions, but again almost all of the data indicate an increasing level of contagion everywhere. According to the latest update, the highest figures are to be found in Catalunya (493), Cantabria (341) and Navarra (303), all three well above the “extreme risk” threshold of 250, while at the other end of the scale figures of below 100 are reported only in Ceuta (27.3), Castilla-La Mancha (71), the Region of Murcia (84), Melilla (86) and Galicia (98).

An indicator of how significantly these rates have increased in the regions is the Valencia region (including Alicante province). This region consistently reported the lowest rates in all of Spain for a two month period, its rate dropping down to just 26 cases per 100,000 of population two months ago; the rate has now risen back up to 216 cases per 100,000 of population.

All of these figures are rising sharply right across the country.

Hospital patients

Not only is the number of known active cases rising, it is also the case that the number of Covid patients admitted to hospital is on the way up. After two months of falls the proportion of hospital beds occupied by coronavirus patients has risen to 2.37 per cent, while in intensive care units the equivalent figure has also increased marginally to 6.74 per cent.

It must be stressed that although young people are less likely to suffer severe illness and die, there are several young people who have been admitted to intensive care this week in Spain with severe cases of covid and hospitals are already preparing for an influx of new patients, taking into consideration that hospitalisations tend to occur around ten days after infection in the more severe cases (full report being published separately.)

Nonetheless, the number of Covid-related fatalities reported on Tuesday was relatively low at 18, and the official total since early 2020 now stands at 80,952. But this is still ANOTHER 18 mothers, brothers, daughters and cousins who have died from Covid in Spain withing the last 24 hours, all avoidable deaths.

Vaccination data

Following the administration of a further 587,000 vaccine doses on Monday the number of people in Spain who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus has reached 19,530,228, equivalent to 41.2 per cent of the population (so that's 59 percent NOT fully vaccinated).

26,727,529 people have received at least one vaccine dose, equivalent to 56.3 per cent of the population.

However, in the 20-29 age group only 13.8 per cent have received their first jab and the proportion fully immunized has reached only 10.6 per cent; many of these people are working and in jobs which expose them to constant risk, such as barwork.

It is also important to point out that there are over 2 million people in Spain in the 60-69-year-old age group who have only been given one dose of the Astrazeneca vaccine and are very vulnerable to the virus (full report following on separate article) as well as millions of others who have only received one dose, many of them the parents of the young people spreading the virus.

The decisions currently being made by the UK government to relax restrictions further impact on all of us here in Spain, particularly those waiting for family to visit, and for those desperate to get out here to their second homes, and although the message being given to the public is that "we've overcome the worst of this, all the vulnerable have been protected and it's time to get back to normal", be under no illusion that there is no longer any risk from covid and we can all drop our guard. Our governments have  succumbed to the pressure of the business sector to resume normal business trading, which is understandable, many of our businesses have been badly affected by this pandemic and we are all desperate for business as normal to resume, but there is still a risk to many people and sensible precautions should continue to be taken. The choice was money or lives, and the decision has been taken to prioritise money over lives, so the emphasis is on all of us to take intelligent decisions and remember that the figures above clearly illustrate that covid is still spreading throughout the population, and the risk that a more deadly variant could still spread remains constant.