Easter Covid Hangover Starts To Bite But Vaccinations Up
The latest government figures released this week for the Covid-19 infection rate shows a continuing rise across the country with Madrid significantly above the national average.
The data released by the Spanish Ministry of Health shows that the increase has spiked which suggests that the Easter holidays may be a cause.
The national infection rate is now 199 infections per 100,000 inhabitants compared to Madrid´s 336.41.
All other of Spain´s 17 autonomous communities have seen rises over the last few weeks – 11 of which have registered an incidence above the high risk level of 150 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
In Andalusia, Aragón and Castilla-La Mancha the rise has been in excess of 40% in a week; while in Castilla y León is up 27% over the same period.
Madrid´s increase is slightly lower at 20% since last week.
Fernando Simón, the government´s Covid-19 response director of the Ministry´s Coordination Centre for Health Alerts (CCAES), said that “we are now seeing the transmission that took place in Easter week. We can’t stop what has already happened. But we can stop what will come from here onward. We can avoid reaching 300 cases per 100,000 [inhabitants]. The measures that the regions have put in place and vaccination will help us to control the epidemic.”
Since the start of the pandemic the Spanish Ministry of Health has recorded 3,370,256 coronavirus cases of whom 76,525 have been fatal.
Spain is receiving its first shipment of the initial 300,000 dose batch of the Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine today, Wednesday 13th April.
The Spanish Health Minister, Carolina Darias announced that the government has ordered up to 5 million doses of the one-shot treatment as part of the vaccination programme objective of immunising 70% of the population by the end of the summer.
To date Spain has received a total of 11,993,715 doses of Covid-19 vaccines ( Pfizer-BioNTech: 7,717,515. Oxford- AstraZeneca: 3,232,200. Moderna: 1,044,000) of which 10,784,997 have been administered including 3,108,437 of the all important second dose.
