Simon Hunter
THE NUMBER of Covid-19 cases in Spain has spiked after Easter week, bringing the 14-day incidence to 2,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants compared to an average of around 800 previously.
Experts fear that the sharp rise in infections could be due to a new variant, and that protection measures may have to be introduced once more.
That’s according to the ANTICIPA-COVID19 observatory at the Complutense University in Madrid, which is tasked with monitoring infection levels.
The observatory bases its observations on regular testing of inhabitants of the Madrid region, and its research showed a relative plateauing of cases at the outset of 2023.
Monitoring of the situation in the coming weeks will indicate whether the upward trend is continuing, or if a new strain of the virus has emerged that is more infectious, as happened several times during the worst of the pandemic when the delta and omicron variants appeared, among others.
The compulsory use of masks indoors was scrapped in Spain in April 2022, but they remained in use on public transport until February of this year.
Currently, masks are still required in healthcare settings such as doctors’ surgeries and hospitals, as well as pharmacies.
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