Five autonomous communities already have more patients in intensive care than last year

Five of Spain’s autonomous communities already have more patients in intensive care than last year.

This Tuesday, December 21, Spain recorded its highest number of new cases since the start of the pandemic with 49,823 new cases in a single day, which means that the incidence increased by 86 points throughout the country. This is not the only indicator to have worsened; the number of hospitalisations and the number of patients being admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) has also done so.

All communities except two, Andalucia (441) and Castilla-La Mancha (340) are considered at very high risk according to the 14-day cumulative incidence, with Navarra, the Basque Country, La Rioja and Aragon exceeding 1,000 points.

The average incidence is around 700 points, a number that has only been higher on two occasions during the whole pandemic: during the first wave (January 19 – February 5 2020) and during the fifth wave (July 26 – 27 2021).

The number of occupied hospital beds is 3.16% lower than in December 21 of last year, although there are two communities (Murcia and La Rioja) and an autonomous city (Melilla) that have more beds occupied by COVID patients than a year ago.

The number of patients in intensive care in Cataluña, Melilla, the Basque Country, Cantabria, Navarra and Canary Islands is already higher than in 2020. The national average is still more than four points lower than the 20% from last year, at 15.77%.

The number of deaths reported over the last week was 239, less than half of the number from a year ago (565). The Valencian Community (37) and Aragon (29) had the highest number of COVID-related deaths.

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