Laurence Dollimore
THERE have been 412 official outbreaks of coronavirus in Spain in July, new figures have revealed.
Speaking to congress this morning, health minister Salvador Illa said there have been 51 new outbreaks in the last three days alone.
Since the country began exiting the nationwide lockdown on May 11, 527 clusters of COVID-19 have been detected, counting more than 6,000 new cases.
Every region has been affected with only the provinces of Salamanca and Ourense not seeing new cases.
But Illa insisted today that the situation is not out of control, despite the fact that the country has reported an average of 900 new cases each day for much of this week.
On Wednesday, for the first time since lockdown began, more than 1,000 new cases were counted in a 24-hour period.
Illa denied that the country was in a second wave but said it was in a ‘control phase’, although he did admit the international situation was ‘worrying’.
Much like the tourism bosses in the island territories, Illa recalled that there are great differences between regions.
Some 60% of the new cases, for example, belong to Catalunya and Aragon.
Meanwhile, a vast majority of the outbreaks, which means three or more linked cases, do not involve more than 12 people.
The country is also carrying out 50,000 tests each working day while the number performed increased by 7% in the past week.
“Most outbreaks are controlled,” said Illa, “We are in a different scenario than in April or March.”
Additionally, he added, 70% of the new cases are asymptomatic and have been detected through ‘screening’ and ‘contact tracing’ schemes.
This, he says, means the country is not re-repeating the ‘nightmare’ of spring, which saw hospitals collapse and at one point hundreds of deaths per day.
Another difference is that the age of the average infected person has dropped from 66 in March and April to 45.
In the past five weeks the average age has been 40.
It comes after there has been a surge in young people catching the disease, particularly at nightlife venues, with dozens of cases linked to a club in Cordoba. There were also several cases linked to a pool party in Sevilla.
This younger average, Illa said, is accompanied by an apparent decrease in the severity of the disease.
Indeed there are currently 209 people in ICU with COVID-19 across Spain, showing that the pressure on the health service remains low, Illa said.
Meanwhile there have only been seven deaths in the past week, which while individually tragic, is a far cry from the 950 killed in one day in early April.
