PROPERTY SEARCH

Date Published: 24/06/2022

ARCHIVED - Spain is in full swing of the seventh wave of Covid

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

Experts believe the peak of this seventh wave will be reached in three weeks in Spain

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Spain is in full swing of the seventh wave of Covid

Spain, like much of the rest of Europe, has experienced a significant upswing in coronavirus infections in recent weeks and many experts believe we are actually in the thick of the seventh wave, but this hasn’t caused quite the same stir as previous outbreaks, since “almost no patients are admitted to the ICU anymore.”

“We are in full swing and we won’t reach the peak for three weeks,” the head of Internal Medicine at the Infanta Leonor Hospital, De Juan Torres, assured this week.

The doctor explained that this wave is mainly affecting older people, particularly those aged over 80 years with other health conditions. For this reason, he has advised that vulnerable people “have to continue protecting themselves” because “the pandemic is not over.”

The fact that most Covid patients these days present with mild or no symptoms is something of a double-edged sword: on the one hand, the once-swamped healthcare sector is less burdened but on the other, “the disease is normalised and trivialised, and people begin to not be as careful as they should be.”

Just because cases are underreported and underdiagnosed, the experts argue, doesn’t mean that the pandemic is over.

Two new strains, BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of Omicron, are behind the current uptick in transmission that has been reported in Spain, and this variant appears to be changing and fine-tuning continuously.

According to Spain’s Ministry of Health, so far no difference in severity has been noted with the new strains, although the latest data shows a slight increase in hospital occupancy.

In the UK, Christina Pagel of University College London believes that “as long as Omicron remains dominant, it seems plausible that large waves of infections every three months or so are the norm.”

And “although the infections will not be problematic for most people, each wave will cause sick leave, serious illness and death for some, and persistent Covid for others.”

Image: Pixaby

Read more about Coronavirus:

Sign up for the Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin to get a comprehensive email with all the week’s news for Spain, Murcia, Alicante and Andalucía.

Get a sneak peek – here are a few of our recent Subscription Bulletins: