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Spain is advancing towards the goal of 70% of the vaccinated population in a paradoxical situation: transmission far exceeds that of the beginning of autumn, when the second wave was forging, while hospital admissions put a similar pressure on the system to that of those first weeks of the course. The data clearly show that vaccines are a great help, but they have not been enough to have a calm summer, after having added 738,332 infections since June 21.

Judging by the number of patients admitted for Covid-19, both in general beds and in the ICU, the hospital pressure is very similar to that suffered by Spain at the beginning of October, when the second state of alarm began to develop, approved the day 25 of that month. However, vaccines have changed the situation: mortality has decreased, and now

many more infections

have been necessary

to reach the same

saturation

levels

.

On October 1, there were 10,599 people hospitalized for SARS-CoV-2 in Spain, of which 1,561 were in the ICU. The figures are, surprisingly, very similar to those reflected yesterday in the first August report of the Ministry of Health, with 10,578 admissions and 1,856 in ICU. There is an important difference, due to the immense benefit of vaccines: then

the incidence was lower

-from 274.82 to 673.52-, but

more people died

: on October 1, 182 deaths were added in the day; yesterday, 147 for the whole weekend.

Although the virus has made it clear that it does not leave us alone in summer, it is unusual for a respiratory illness to keep thousands of people in the hospital and kill dozens of lives a day on vacation. If we go back a year, the first report of August 2020 -of day 3- showed less dramatic figures than the current ones. The Health document reflected at that time 562 admissions in the last seven days, while yesterday

1,216 hospitalizations

were reported

only in the last 24 hours

.

As for the number of deaths, this summer is also exceeding the data that was published a year ago. On August 3, 2020, Health reported

26 deaths in the week, compared to 207 that were reported yesterday

for this same parameter (both then and now, it is an indicator that usually suffers significant delays). The trend will still worsen, foreseeably, at least a few more days, as the figures for hospital pressure and ICU continue to rise.

According to the data collected by

Our World in Data

, Spain is the country, together with the United States, that

has kept the most people in intensive care as a proportion of the population

in recent weeks. Although the cumulative incidence has started to decline, and is likely to continue to decline during the week, the impact on the fifth wave hospitals will still be felt strongly.

According to María José Sierra, head of the area of ​​the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), "it is true that the high incidence continues to be in the groups between 12 and 29 years old, but it is also very high in the older groups ". Sierra also pointed out that "the decrease in incidence that we are seeing occurs, above all, in the younger groups", while

transmission does not decrease in the same way in the older groups

, whose probabilities of becoming seriously ill increase.

In people aged 40 to 49, yesterday's report places three communities above 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days: Balearic Islands (709.12), Catalonia (690.11) and Madrid (546.67), which are the three that already suffer the greatest pressure in ICUs. All regions, except Ceuta and Melilla, exceed 250 cases for this age group, and

almost all also exceed this threshold, considered to be the highest risk, in the population aged 50 to 59 years

, adding the exception of Murcia.

In summary, transmission is still very high in population groups that, as this wave has shown, can also become seriously ill, so the foreseeable impact on hospitals and ICUs

will last, at least, for much of what is summer

.

A summer that, just over a month ago, no one would have imagined.

Or maybe we didn't want to see it?

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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