The data no longer reflects the transmission of the coronavirus more than in those over 59 years of age, but the pandemic is still with us and, according to several epidemiologists, Spain would be overcoming a new wave, the seventh, whose transmission would be similar to the previous one, although its effects are becoming less severe.
The epidemiologist Óscar Zurriaga, the vaccinologist Fernando Moraga-Llop and the family doctor Lorenzo Armenteros explain to EFE what the current situation of the coronavirus is: the transmission could be assimilated to the sixth wave, that of the omicronbut the virulence of the virus continues to decline.
According to the latest Health data, the incidence is now at 586 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, and the occupation hospitable of Covid patients is 5.5 percent.
During the peak of the sixth wave, in mid-January, there were around 19,000 admitted throughout Spain, which represented a 15.2 percent total pressure in hospitals with intensive care units above 23 percent, specifically with more than 2,200 critics.
The peak of hospitalizations in this seventh wave was in April among those over 60, similar to that of the sixth, although the truth is that mortality has been reduced progressively in recent months.
The vice president of the Spanish Society of Vaccinology, Fernando Moraga-Llop, explains to EFE that the serious cases of the disease, those that require admission to intensive care or a hospital. “But what has not gone down are the infections,” she says.
The current variant escapes vaccines
The current variant of Covid, he comments, “escapes immunity”, so that people are still infected despite vaccination coverage, which, on the other hand, is also losing its effect.
“We are going through a wave, which is now going down,” explains Óscar Zurriaga, vice president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, who says that, depending on how it is analyzed, this could be an extension of the seventh wave or a new , the eighth, which has had a great transmission in all ages.
This epidemiologist considers that society already needed to return to a certain normal after the pandemic, but ask caution and that the general recommendations of using the mask in unventilated or very crowded places and also as soon as respiratory symptoms are present, are strictly followed.
“If we don’t continue with the precautions, we will never get rid of this pandemic,” explains Zurriaga. According to the latest data from the Ministry, 194 people died in the last week. “These are data that, as a country, I think we cannot afford,” she adds.
Lorenzo Armenteros, Covid spokesperson for the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians, is even tougher and considers that this seventh wave has been “biased”, “masked” and it has gone almost unnoticed in the face of the Government’s will, he says, to turn the page.
Work while infected
Except in serious cases, Primary Care doctors hardly see Covid patients anymore, not even to indicate sick leave, because, remember, “now everyone has to go to work even being infected, also the doctors themselves”, a measure that in his opinion does not help to stop transmission, nor does it make it easier that companies have not been forced to have antivirus filters in air conditioners.
Both Armenteros and Zurriaga and Moraga-Llop ask the population to be strict in the use of masks and that they isolate themselves as much as possible and protect others if they have a cold or suspect Covid, which, according to the family doctor, is currently behind 90 percent of respiratory infections.
“If it is not complicated with more dangerous variants, everything indicates that it will become a disease endemic“This doctor explains.
More vaccines?
Regarding whether there is still immunity, the representative of family doctors points out that there are contradictory studies, but in any case he believes that, except in high-risk cases, it makes no sense to inject the general population a fourth dose of a vaccine that is no longer protecting of the existing variant.
This is also defended by the vice-president of the Spanish Society of Vaccinology, who believes, like Dr. Zurriaga, that the important thing is to get everyone to inject the booster dose -the third– and wait for the reformulated vaccines about to be approved (Hypra’s, but also Moderna’s and Pfizer’s) can be injected in the fall, with specific protection against omicron.
Along the same lines, Moraga-Llop believes it is more reasonable to wait before injecting the second dose for children. “Perhaps it is better to have the new vaccines“, explains this vaccinologist, who believes that it may also be better to wait in the case of the first dose for the age group between 6 months and 5 years, whose vaccination will be authorized, as expected, in the coming weeks.
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