Madrid Bucks National Trend Of Slowing Covid Rate

The latest government Covid infection rate figures released by the Ministry of Health show a slowing rise across the country with a national average incident rate of 230 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

The figures released yesterday, Monday 19th April, show a slight increase from the 213 per 100,000 that had been recorded the week before.

The government´s Director of the Health Ministry’s Coordination Centre for Health Alerts (CCAES) which oversees the central government´s Covid-19 response, Fernando Simón, said the latest epidemiological figures suggest that “this fourth wave is not going to be of a very large scale or come close to what we saw in the second and third waves.”

However, the rate is above the extreme risk threshold of 250 cases per 100,000 in 6 of Spain´s 17 autonomous communties including Madrid which is second only to Navarra with 406 cases per 100,000 of population.

There are currently 10,447 Covid-19 patients in hospital across Spain of which 2,276 are in intensive care units (ICUs) of which 550 of the total are in the Madrid region.

Nearly 1 in 5 beds are now occupied by coronavirus patients across the country´s hospital network as well as the specially built emergency medical centres such as Madrid´s Isabel Zendal Hospital in Valdebebas.

In addition, the Madrid region has 20 confined Special Health Zones representing 446,000 residents ( around 6% of the Madrid regional population) who are not permited to leave their residential zones unless for work, school or other prescribed reason.

To date the Spanish Ministry of Health has recorded 3,428,354 Covid-19 cases of which 77,102 have been fatal.

However the growing number of vaccinated people is beginning to take effect on the slowing infection rate.

Fernando Simón said that “right now, 20% of the total population has had at least one dose and 7.2% have had both.” Added with the number of people who have recovered from the virus the population is becoming increasingly protected fom the coronavirus.

The 19th April figures show that Spain has received 13,703,085 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, of which 12,853,599 have been administered including 3,411,914 of the all important second dose.

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