Laurence Dollimore
SPAIN has lowered its coronavirus incidence rate to 240.89 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
It demotes the country from the ‘very high risk’ category to the ‘high risk’ category, although it will unlikely hit its target of 25 cases per 100,000 people by Christmas.
Spain recorded 10,127 cases on Thursday, representing an increase on Wednesday’s figure and bringing the total number of infected to 1,675,902.
Meanwhile some 254 people lost their lives between Wednesday and Thursday.
Director of health emergencies Fernando Simon said last night that the evolution of the pandemic in the country has been in ‘continuous decline’ for almost four weeks.
However he warned that the incidence rate of 240 cases per 100,000 people was still ‘much higher’ than goals set by the Government.
In terms of pressure on the health service, some 10.53% of conventional hospital beds are currently occupied by coronavirus patients.
In the intensive care units, that share increases to 25.28%, with ICUs finding it more difficult to ease pressure.
“The ICUs are going down very slowly and one in four beds are still occupied by COVID,” said Simon, “We continue to have a lot of pressure… it is improving but there is still a lot of pressure.”
There are currently 13,063 coronavirus patients across the country’s hospitals, of which 2,440 are in intensive care.
On Thursday a total of 1,543 COVID-19 sufferers were discharged.
In the week between November 23 and 29, 891,188 diagnostic tests were carried out in Spain, with a positivity rate of 8.68%.
“We continue with a good diagnosis rate, 2,000 tests per inhabitant per week, but given the situation and that of the rest of Europe, in which practically all countries are beginning to stabilise the curve with higher accumulated incidences, we cannot drop the ball,” Simon added.
