Date Published: 16/04/2021
ARCHIVED - Slow rise in Spanish infection rate continues as Covid claims 126 more lives: Covid update April 15
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The fourth wave is growing at a far slower rate than the surge in contagion after Christmas
The level of coronavirus contagion in Spain continued its gradual increase of the last couple of weeks with the publication of the Ministry of Health’s latest update on Thursday evening, with the 14-day accumulated incidence rate rising to 202.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the number of new positives confirmed since the start of the Easter Holidays reaching 105,291.
9,663 new cases are reported in the latest bulletin for the latest 24 hour period, while the regional breakdown of the figures shows that although there are still only three among Spain’s 17 regions where the risk of infection is above the “extreme” threshold (Madrid, Navarra and the Basque Country) there are others where the incidence rate is approaching the level of 250, most notably Aragón (235) and Andalucía (225), Catalunya (220) and La Rioja (208).
At the other end of the scale the Comunidad Valenciana (35.6) continues to occupy the “low risk” zone but the only other regions to report figures of under 100 are Galicia (78), Murcia (64) and the Balearics (59).
Tellingly, the 7-day incidence rate is over half the 14-day rate in every region except Castilla-La Mancha and the north African enclave of Ceuta, suggesting that no downward movement in the 14-day figure is imminent. On the other hand, while the figure has risen by 25 per cent since the end of the Easter period this represents a far less significant rise than in the equivalent timeframe following the Christmas and New Year festivities; this means that although there is a clear increase in cases heading into a fourth wave, this rise is less pronounced than it was.
Meanwhile, the proportion of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients again dropped slightly in the latest update to 7.76 per cent, but the figure in intensive care units remains dangerously high at 21.4 per cent, and is between 38 and 42 per cent in La Rioja, Catalunya and Madrid.
As ever, the worst aspect contained in Thursday’s update is the addition of another 126 to the official Covid-19 death toll compiled by the Ministry, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 76,882.
The vaccination campaign continues: as of Thursday evening 11,885,085 vaccines had been administered nationally, with 3,253,537 people having received two doses.