Date Published: 27/01/2022
ARCHIVED - Incidence drops for third consecutive day: Spain Covid update January 27
The number of patients in the ICU in Spain is half that of last year
After weeks of soaring figures, the coronavirus pandemic in Spain continues to slowly but surely weaken, with the cumulative incidence rate dropping for the third consecutive day this week. However, with Omicron now accounting for 86% of all Covid positives in this country, the number of new infections is growing, although it is resulting in far less serious cases and as a consequence, hospital pressure is finally beginning to abate.
On Wednesday January 26, Spain’s Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, made a hopeful statement for the future, reassuring that even though the incidence “is almost seven times higher than a year ago,” the number of hospitalisations is similar to that same period. In addition, the number of ICU beds occupied by coronavirus patients is half what it was this time last year.
Cumulative incidence rate
While the entire country remains in the very high-risk category, 14 autonomous communities have reduced their incidence rate in the last 24 hours. In Spain, the 14-day figure has fallen another 72 points on January 26 to stand at 3,194 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Ceuta has registered the highest figure in all of Spain, with 5,625 cases, followed by Catalonia (5,245) and the Region of Murcia (4,965). The lowest numbers are seen in Andalucía (1,211), Madrid (1,897) and the Canary Islands (2,127) while Valencia continues to be well above the national average at 4,107 cases.
Despite such high incidences in most communities -only two fall below 2,000 cases-, the most affected age groups in this sixth wave are young people. Thus, those over 80 years of age have an incidence of 1,904 cases and those of 70 years of age, 1,457, while young people double that figure (4,120 in the 12 to 19 age range). Those under 11 continue to record the highest figure of 5,666.
See also: How to obtain a Covid passport in Spain
Coronavirus infections
The autonomous communities have notified the Ministry of Health of 133,553 new Covid cases on Wednesday, 52,034 of which were diagnosed in the last 24 hours. These figures are lower than the same day last week, when 157,941 infections were reported.
In the past two weeks, 1,513,796 infections have been registered, bringing the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic in Spain to 9,529,320.
Meanwhile, the positivity rate has increased slightly from 37.65% yesterday to 37.75%.
Hospitalisations and fatalities
The positive news is that hospital pressure has been relieved somewhat, and although the percentage of beds occupied by Covid patients is still 15.06%, this figure has dropped by 0.41% compared to the previous day.
In intensive care, 22.74% of beds are taken up by coronavirus patients, slightly lower than on Tuesday but still at high risk, with Catalonia continuing to display the worst data, at 41.64%.
Currently, there are 18,805 patients hospitalised for Covid throughout the country, with a slight drop compared to the previous day (19,314 yesterday and 2,152 in the ICU (2,204 the day before).
In the last 24 hours, there have been 33 fewer admissions.
On January 26, 215 deaths were reported, compared to 160 last Wednesday, which brings the overall death toll since the health crisis began to 92,591 people.
Vaccination data
The experts believe that the improvement in the most important indicators is down to the success of the vaccination campaign, which has seen 38,264,820 people (90.7%) receive both jabs.
In addition, almost 15 million people have now received a booster dose.
Image: Ministerio de Defensa
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