Date Published: 23/10/2020
ARCHIVED - Covid cases in Spain increase by 19,851 and deaths by 231 in 24 hours
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
It’s becoming increasingly likely that the Government will announce a state of emergency this weekend
It’s been a difficult week for all those involved in the fight to bring the number of coronavirus cases in Spain under control, with the record for the number of new cases being broken three times in a week; by the end of this latest seven day period, the Ministry of Health has reported a total of 109,572 new cases of coronavirus and 977 deaths.
This Friday the Ministry notified 19,851 new cases, bringing the overall total up to 1,046,132 and bringing the total cases detected this week to 109,572.
The Ministry also notified 231 deaths, bringing the total this week up to 977 and the total to date to 34,752.
Cases are increasing nationwide at a significant rate and the week has concluded with an accumulated incidence rate of 361.66 per 100,000, having increased from 280.44 a week ago.
As has been the case right throughout the pandemic there is significant regional variation;
Navarra heads up the list of regions with a whopping 1062 cases per 100,000 of population, followed by Melilla with 917.74; Aragón, 682.18; La Rioja, 630.37; Castilla y León 562.11; Catalonia 447.73; Ceuta 444.71; Basque Country 430.34; Madrid 421.62; Castilla la Mancha 385.22; Murcia 379.41; Extremadura 352.44; Andalucía 327.17; Asturias 300.84; Cantabria 225.10; Galicia 192.11; Valencia Region 153.16; Balearic Islands 150.68; Canary Islands 81.41.
Pressure on hospital system:
As of today there are 14,539 patients in hospital wards with severe cases of covid across Spain, 379 more than on Thursday and 2,031 in intensive care, a rise of 65 since yesterday.
The bed occupancy levels have been stealthily rising all week; on Monday 10.4% of all available beds were occupied, the figure exceeding the 10% threshold for the first time, but by Friday this figure had risen to 12.11%.
The national average for ICU beds on Friday is 22.48%. in Melilla 66% of ICU beds are occupied by covid patients; in Aragón the figure is 42.56%, in Ceuta 47%, Castilla y León 35%, Madrid 38% and Navarra 32%.
Click for full source data
On Friday the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, addressed the country, calling for unity and social discipline during the coming weeks and months to avoid a total lockdown as we experienced this past spring.In an institutional statement from La Moncloa, without taking questions from the media or announcements of any new measures to combat the virus, he estimated the actual number of COVID cases in Spain to be nearer 3 million, although the official figure is one million.
Given this situation and the growing number of patients in their hospitals, several communities have requested throughout the afternoon that the Central Executive decree the state of alarm in order to help the regional governments apply the necessary restrictive measures to contain the pandemic, such as the imposition of curfews. Castilla y León, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Extremadura; la Rioja, Navarra, Melilla and Cantabria have asked the government to call a state of alarm in the last few hours and Andalusia, the Valencian Community and Murcia have already announced their intention to apply a curfew, while Madrid has communicated meeting restrictions between 00 and 6 hours. Castilla La Mancha has said that it intends to request a state of emergency this Saturday.
The Government is expected to make a decision over the weekend, but it is very highly that Spain will once again return to a state of emergency this weekend.