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Date Published: 17/02/2022

ARCHIVED - Why does the death toll continue to climb even as infections drop in Spain?

ARCHIVED ARTICLE

The sixth wave has resulted in the most deaths in Spain of the entire Covid pandemic

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Why does the death toll continue to climb even as infections drop in Spain?

Spain registered one of its darker days of the pandemic on February 16, as even though infections and hospitalisations are dropping steadily, the daily death toll soared to 444 fatalities – a level not experienced since March last year. In fact, the sixth wave has claimed more lives than any other, but why is the death toll rising when all the other indicators are falling?

The country has registered a total of 96,906 deaths since the pandemic began; 9,126 since the official start of the sixth wave, on October 14 last year, 6,217 during the fifth wave and 8,394 during the fourth. Health experts though prefer to compare this wave to the third, since it occurred within roughly the same time period (December to March) and affected all age groups equally.

As always, the devil is in the details, and the picture doesn’t become clear until one looks at deaths relative to infections. During the third wave, 1.45 million infections and 24,321 deaths were recorded. In this latest wave, infections exploded to 4.47 million while far fewer deaths occurred – 6,589. This means that the lethality of the third wave was 1.68% while the figure has now dropped to just 0.15%.

The Ministry of Health attributes this huge difference to vaccinations, since the vast majority of fatalities in recent months are reported in people who haven’t been jabbed. The disparity is more striking when the data from the very start of the pandemic is considered. According to epidemiologist Pedro Gullón, the probability of a person infected with Covid dying today in Spain is 0.9%, whereas during the first wave, before vaccinations were available, it reached 11%.

From the available data, Mr Gullón has concluded that Omicron has caused transmission levels similar to the first wave across Europe, but the difference is that without vaccinations and if Omicron had been a stronger variant, “the mortality would have been incredible.”

The experts agree that while Omicron causes less serious symptoms, the effects can still be devastating given its transmissibility, and mortality rates are even higher in countries with fewer Covid controls and lower vaccination rates.

Epidemiologist Salvador Macip from the University of Leicester has cautioned that we must continue to be vigilant and not prematurely celebrate the end of the sixth wave, since history has taught us that, in the end, “everything is relative”.

For now, he advises continuing with practical pandemic control measures “until the curve is at much lower levels”.

Image: Archive

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