In 15 Spanish autonomous regions and cities, figures show corona infections on the increase this week. Navarra and La Rioja, both in the north of Spain, showed the largest growth.
Nobody dares to call it the fourth wave yet, but the curves are rising every day; especially in some communities north of La Meseta Central.
End of downward trend
This week, after weeks of a downward trend, the number of infections rose again. Since July, the Spanish Ministry of Health no longer publishes data on the epidemic at weekends. This means the ‘epidemiological’ week lasts from Monday to Friday.
Tangible increase
Specifically, the number of infections increased by an average of 7.8% over the last two ‘epidemiological’ weeks, although there were large differences between the Autonomous Communities. Navarre (+42.34%) and La Rioja (+27.55%) showed the largest increases, but but the number of infections also grew in the Basque Country (+14%), Extremadura (+12.3%), Cantabria (+12.2%), Catalonia (+12%), Castilla-La Mancha (+10.8%), Balearic Islands (+10.4%) and Madrid (+10.4%)
Castilla y León (6.1%), Asturias (4.3%), Andalusia (1.7%), Canary Islands (1.6%), Ceuta (1.4%) and Aragón (0.7%) also saw their number increase, albeit to a lesser extent. Valencia (-8.9%), Galicia (-7.3%), Melilla (-2.5%) and Murcia (-0.9%) showed a decrease in the number of infections.
Stagnation already processed
Information from hospitals shows that the stagnation in the number of infections that seemed to occur last week has already been incorporated in the figures. The fall in hospital occupancy rates is stable. The percentage of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs) fell to 18.62% on Thursday, down from 18.64% the day before. In general hospital wards, the drop was even smaller – from 6.24% to 6.23%.
By looking only at the daily increase, important nuances are lost. If the 7-day incidence is more than 50% of the 14-day incidence, it means that infections are again going in the wrong direction. In fact, there is already cause for concern when this indicator exceeds 40%.
Eight autonomous regions
Currently, this is the case for eight autonomous regions; these are Navarre (64.6%), La Rioja (63.3%), Balearic Islands (54.8%), Basque Country (53.9%) Cantabria (52.9%), Castilla y León (52%), Aragon (51.8%) and Canary Islands (50.9%).
However, despite the increase in infections there are no tighter measures planned for Semana Santa.
