CONTINUECONTINUE
Mortality from coronavirus is approximately 100.000 deaths in Spain officially registered by the Ministry of Health. The sixth wave has added another eleven thousand deaths so far, with a tragic January with more than five thousand deaths in one month, a figure not seen since the deadly third wave in the winter of last year. In three months, however, there have been more infections than in the entire restaurant of the pandemic. The virus has hit harder but has done less damage to a largely vaccinated population.
The lower number of deaths this wave compared to previous ones, despite the much higher number of infections, has encouraged the Government to announce the next 'flu' of the coronavirus; that is, coexistence with Covid-19 as just another respiratory virus.
The number of functions in the sixth wave, however, is still well above a common complaint. The ten thousand deaths so far in less than three months exceed those of the complete flu seasons of the years prior to the pandemic. In the 2019-2020 period, 3900 deaths attributable to influenza were estimated; and in 2018-2019, 6.300 deaths, according to statistics from the National Epidemiology Center (CNE) and the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII).
The sixth wave of coronavirus has already added as many functions as the fourth and fifth together, in the spring and summer of last year respectively. In the last three months there have been as many deaths as in the previous eight months, between April and November, according to ISCIII data. The current wave has not yet closed the balance, since the notifications are registered with delay, especially recent dates, and there are days with more than 200 deaths.
Weigh in to do, the number of deaths from Covid in Spain is much higher than the official figures from the ministry. According to updated information from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) on deaths, in 2020 and 2021 excess mortality in Spain exceeded 122.000 deaths compared to the 89.412 deaths reported by Health when the year.
If the death data is now more similar to the real ones than in the first waves of the virus, what has ceased to be is the number of infections. In fact, the experts advised of the lack of real data on infections to make correct decisions and move towards the long-awaited 'flu'. For this, it proposes to update the seroprevalence studies abandoned by Health after the emergence of Ómicron.
“We failed in the last phase”
"During the past five waves, what has failed us has been the last phase, we have only focused on de-escalation measures: masks, capacity... However, now that we have less health pressure, we should think about what to do in the future," explained the Dr. José Luis del Pozo, director of the Infectious Diseases and Microbiology service at the University Clinic of Navarra, has this newspaper. In his opinion, at the end of the sixth wave “we are falling into the same mistake again”, since with Ómicron there is no “rigorous” information on who has passed the virus.
This situation is the result of the high percentage of people who have been infected in recent months, have been diagnosed through an emergency self-test that has not been notified to Health or have had the infection asymptomatically, according to the microbiologist of the same clinic, Gabriel Queen. In addition, he emphasizes that the best time to carry out this type of study – such as the ENE-Covid promoted by Health – is now, “once the peak of infections has been overcome, because it allows for a less changeable and more real picture of the pandemic” .
Despite the high mortality, however, in this wave, with the Omicron variant, more than half of the infections since the virus entered have also been registered in Spain. Of the 11 million cases detected since February 2020, six million have tested positive in the last three months, since December of last year, compared to five million positives in the previous 22 months. In other words, the sixth wave has contributed six out of ten infections, but only one out of ten deaths from the pandemic.
More infections, fewer deaths
The explosiveness of infections in the sixth wave has reached levels not seen until now, with an accumulated incidence of more than 3.000 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants in the last 14 days at the beginning of January, six times the limit considered as very high risk . Before the accumulated incidence had not exceeded the incidence of 900, January of last year. Now it continued to decline, although still above the level of greatest danger.
Until the sixth wave, mortality had drawn even curves in the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. This has been the case until the arrival of the Ómicron variant this winter, with an explosion of infections unparalleled in any pandemic, but decoupled from the line, much lower, of admissions and deaths.
In the sixth wave, the high risk level in hospital occupancy, set at 15% of beds with coronavirus patients, has not been exceeded; nor in the occupation of intensive care units (ICU), marked in 25% with Covid-19 patients. Only that level of saturation had been avoided in the fourth and fifth waves, which were milder; While in the third the ICUs came to touch 50% occupied with the pandemic virus.
wave deaths
Last summer, the fifth wave, called the 'young wave', mainly affected the population that had not yet been vaccinated, while the older population, with a higher risk of complications from the infection, was already immunized. Even so, it left more than six thousand dead in its wake. The fourth wave, in spring, of lesser intensity, claimed the lives of 4.000 people; many of them, however, still collected from the harsh winter.
The comparison of the sixth wave with the previous winter, still without vaccines, is differential. That third wave left 30.000 dead, 25.000 of them between December and February, compared to 10.000 in the sixth those months, with the large population immunized and the elderly with the third dose. The first wave, abruptly cut off by the confinement, already 30.000 dead; while the second, the summer-autumn of 2020, added 20.000.
