The existence of people with the following characteristics Cold, flu or Covid-19Continued to increase.The lack of mandatory protective measures such as masks or social distancing, combined with large crowds during these holidays, is causing “The perfect storm.”
At least in the autonomous community of Madrid, a surge in cases won’t occur until next week in January. The Minister of Health confirmed this, Fatima Matut, After visiting the Zendal Hospital Summa-112 Coordination Center.
Matute said when analyzing the current situation Incidence of Covid-19 The flu situation is stable, with the flu “not becoming more serious or requiring hospital admission”, particularly affecting people over 80 with other medical conditions.
(Influenza “outbreak” in Madrid, emergencies among children increase by 29%: peak of cases in second week of January)
In fact, he said hospital pressures have not increased because “scheduled admissions for surgeries or other events do not have to be paused.”
In short, Madrid is not worried about the huge pressure on hospitals that may occur in these weeks, as they believe that the peak of infections will be in king.
The epidemiological situation is heating up, as evidenced by the sales of coronavirus testing reagents and masks.
Sales of test kits to detect whether we have the flu or coronavirus have tripled in just one month, according to the Madrid School of Pharmacists, and Mask sales tripled.
Globally, consultants monitoring the situation hour by hour and hospital by hospital counted 11,000 emergencies in the past 24 hours, few of them serious.
(Madrid already gives healthy children the flu vaccine: “With intranasal injection, they are calm, they just need to breathe”)
“They are increasing, but not exponentially, causing normal services at the hospital to collapse. We are bringing in reinforcements because staff are on vacation and they are also contracting respiratory infections. We are controlling these variables during these vacation periods,” He promised.
more vulnerable
Matut recalled that the incidence of respiratory infections was widespread but affected older people and children more because they were more susceptible to infection and “they were the ones who were most seriously affected and their symptoms could be more severe.”
“Especially in older adults, as respiratory infections can lead to imbalances in other underlying diseases,” he noted.
(Flu causes resurgence of infections and respiratory viruses during Christmas holidays)
“They are the ones who need our care the most Protection through vaccinesbut also maintain hygiene measures, wash hands frequently and wear masks for people who are symptomatic and do not interact with other family members, especially the most vulnerable,” he stressed.
Latest figures show that the number of people infected with influenza last week was 50.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitantsThis is a 74% increase from the previous week, according to data collected by the Madrid Autonomous Community Epidemiological Report.
According to this newspaper, the highest incidence rate is among children under 4 years old, with 72.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.