Date Published: 01/06/2021
ARCHIVED - Almost 1 in 5 people in Spain are fully immunized against Covid
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Coronavirus incidence rates in Spain fall as just 48 fatalities are added to the pandemic toll
Three of the 17 regions reported no more Covid deaths between Friday and Sunday
The continuing gradual improvement in the coronavirus pandemic situation in Spain was once again maintained in the latest update published by the Ministry of Health on Monday evening, as the data showed that the national 14-day accumulated incidence rate has now fallen to 121.75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, its lowest level since the first half of last August.
The Monday bulletin reports a further 9,732 cases and “only” 48 fatalities – with none at all in the regions of Asturias, the Balearics and La Rioja - taking the official Ministry death toll since the start of the pandemic up to 79,953, but the mortality of the virus is decreasing markedly now that the vast majority of the elderly in Spain have received at least one vaccine dose.
Similarly, the pressure on the country’s hospitals continues to ease, and the proportion of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients has now dropped to 3.91 per cent. The equivalent figure in intensive care units stands at just under 14, although it is still above 25 per cent in the regions of Madrid (29.3%) and La Rioja (26.4%).
There is also a wide disparity in the incidence rates reported in the 17 regions, ranging from 34.7 in the Comunidad Valenciana and 37.9 in the Balearics to 196 in the Basque Country and 179 in Madrid: these last two are among six regions still in “high risk” territory, the others being Andalucía, Aragón, the north African enclave of Melilla and La Rioja.
VACCINATION UPDATE
A further 693,948 doses of Covid vaccine were administered to the population of Spain over the weekend, bringing the total up to over 26.8 million.
People to have received at least one dose: 18,032,417 (38 per cent of the population)
People fully vaccinated: 9,221,285 (19.4 per cent)
Among the population aged over 60, the proportion of people to have received at least one dose has risen to 95 per cent, while well over half (60.1 per cent) have completed the immunization process.
There are still noticeable variations among the speeds of vaccination in Spain’s 17 regions: for example, in Asturias the proportion of over-16s to have received at least one dose has risen to 54.3 per cent, while in the Balearics, the Canaries and the Region of Murcia the equivalent figure stands at between 38 and 40 per cent.
In terms of those who have received the full immunization treatment, the percentages range from 16.4 per cent in the Balearics to 30.9 per cent in Castilla y León.