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ARCHIVED - Murcian intensive care units will be full in 2 weeks if Covid situation doesn´t change
Regional health minister warns that there is only one way to prevent the worst forecasts from being fulfilled: stop the contagion
On Monday the weekly Monday morning session of the covid monitoring committee took place in Murcia, analysing the latest figures and discussing the appropriate regional government response to the evolving situation.
On Tuesday it is highly likely tht the Murcia region will break through the 5,000 active cases barrier, following a month of frenetic growth in the number of cases reported.
To recap:
On 21st June, when Spain came out of the state of emergency, Murcia had 87 cases.
On July 4th the region had just 74 cases.
By August 4th the region had 746 cases, a rise of 672 cases in a month.
Last week, on Friday 28th August the Region of Murcia had 2,876 cases and 159 deaths.
A week later, on Friday 4th September the total had risen to 4,432. and the deaths to 161, an increase of 1556 in a WEEK.
So this means that on Friday, the number of cases in the Murcia region had risen by 3,686 cases in the last month.
It's worth bearing in mind that at the peak of the first wave in the spring, the highest level reached in Murcia was 1,049 active cases, so we have now more than quadrupled the number of cases in the region at its highest point and are rapidly approaching the point at which we will have increased the case numbers five times over.
The regional Minister for Health, Manuel Villegas warned today that if the number of cases continues to rise at this same rate, then within 2 weeks the regional health service will itself be in the need of emergency intervention, and he requested that the public act with prudence to prevent the collapse of the health facilities in the region.
At the moment, the occupancy in intensive care is 45% (there are 50 critical patients admitted), the problem being that here in the Murcia region we only have 115 intensive care beds and 50 of them contain covid patients now, so it's a small step up before the regional health services are totally overwhelmed and are having to try and create more intensive care space.
The Rafael Méndez in Lorca, for example, can only handle 12 intensive care patients and is at full capacity, so is having to divert its covid patients requiring intensive care to other hospitals. However, occupancy else where is already increasing; the Reina Sofía for example is already up to 50% itself.
Villegas said that there is the possibility of creating more intensive care beds in the regional hospitals, and he believes that the region will be able to triple its capacity if pushed, but this will be at the expense of non-urgent operations.
The minister confirmed that hospitals "will have to reduce" scheduled non-urgent interventions as was the case during the first wave. In a normal year operating rooms would already be completely full and on a 100% timetable from the end of the summer holidays, but operations are already being suspended.
"It's a shame that people will see their operations delayed once again," he said, “but everything indicates that this will happen,” he admitted.
Yet again, he appealed to individual responsibility, because "we cannot put a police officer behind everyone" and, "no matter how many resources we can implement", the pandemic will not be stopped if quarantines and preventative measures are not complied with.”
The regional government is reluctant to move the region back into a state of lockdown, but is obviously already struggling to control the number of people in home isolation with mild symptoms, some of whom are ignoring the quarantine order and are carrying on with life as normal, some even going to work.
So far this month, Public Health has processed 1,174 denuncias for different infractions of the regulations, the most common being the non-use and mis-use of masks, but this number is way below the level it needs to be if the public is to take the order seriously.
Meanwhile, the biggest problem the health service now faces is that the virus is inside 9 of the region’s public and private care homes and residences for those with physical and mental disabilities.
Over the weekend the number of cases in these homes rose from 64 to 88 and the death of the first carehome patient, a Caser care home resident from Lorca, occurred.
These patients are the most susceptible to the virus and as most are of advanced age and many are suffering from pre-exisiting medical conditions which make them far more likely to die should they contract covid, it is easy to see how quickly the regional hospital services could become saturated should covid progress inside them, which will in turn, push the death rate upwards.
Logically, the more widespread the infections, the greater the chance of people who are considered to be at risk, ie those over 65 and those with pre-existing medical conditions, being exposed to the virus, so although the more mature expats who typically are those retiring to Murcia shouldn´t get themselves in a panic, it is important to be vigilant and take sensible precautions , as the regional health authority knows full well that some of those breaching quarantine and continuing to act as though there was nothing amiss, are asymptomatic, but are still contagious.
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