Christmas and covid-19: a devilish combination

Girona / BarcelonaChristmas, New Year's Eve and Three Wise Kings' day (the Epiphany, on January 6th). These are the most important dates of the year and during which people tend to have more social relationships and with people from various backgrounds. In addition, they are separated in the calendar by about a difference of six days, just enough time to be able to infect more people before the new positive is detected. "If the number of infections increases at Christmas, they will increase on New Year's Eve and that the same thing will happen on the Epiphany", warns Clara Prats, a researcher from the Biocom group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), who describes the calendar as "devilish" due to the danger of an exponential increase in the number of positive infections.

On average, people develop the first symptoms within five or six days after becoming infected, and that is when they go to the doctor and the new case is detected. But this is also when people are most contagious. "And it can be that a person gets infected at Christmas and passes it on to other people on New Year's Eve, or from New Year's Eve to the Epiphany", Prats explains, and also remembers that on these dates people usually interact with people from different backgrounds: on the 25th and 26th with family, and on the 31st with friends. "And you can spread the virus through different support bubbles", she says.

We now have the experience of the Purisima bank holiday: with the increase in mobility and social interactions, contagion has shot up. And now, unlike the start of the second wave in October, when restrictions were tightened, we are starting to see worse figures. "We haven't met any of the goals we set ourselves to get to Christmas with a little bit of peace of mind: we have almost 2,000 cases a day, we have more than 300 people in the ICUs and an upward trend. These are three very bad data to start the holidays", warns the researcher, who fears that January will reproduce the same rate of infection increase that was recorded in October. And the main focus of concern are the ICUs: if in early fall there were 150 critical admissions, this has now doubled: there were 336 last Thursday. "And if you go beyond the 600-bed barrier, it means you will have to stop treating other pathologies and, as in March, you will have hospitals with only covid", the researcher says, who, because of all these factors, fears that the third wave "will be worse than the first".

As for the restrictions applied during the holidays, the member of the Biocom group admits that "all the exceptions do not help in the control of the epidemiological situation and they leave everything in the hands of citizens". "Even if you comply with the instructions, today you can meet 10 people, tomorrow 10 more, and that would really be a breach of control", she said before admitting that "perhaps more restrictions on mobility would be necessary".

Measures throughout the territory

According to data from the Health Department, Catalonia has a cumulative incidence of 287 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a reproduction rate of 1.24, which means that every 100 new positives infect 124 more.

Another worrying figure is the percentage of tests that are positive, which has not stopped increasing in the last month: from 3.64% to 5.14% as of December 20. According to the WHO, when you exceed 5% it means that you have more positives than you have detected. Faced with these figures, "which are bad", the Secretary of Public Health, Josep Maria Argimon, issued a warning on the 24th: "We will have to start thinking about measures for the whole territory", he said when he explained that the restrictions that the Government decreed in the Ripollès and Cerdanya due to the high incidence of the virus could not be extended to different regions: "If we were to make one region now, then two, three... Catalonia would be patched up".

These changes could come next Monday, December 28, when the measures that have been planned for this Christmas will be reviewed. Argimon predicted that next week the incidence of the coronavirus "will be very similar", although he stressed that we have to think beyond, after the 6th January. "I can't answer how we will be on January 8th. I can imagine, but this is not the time to venture", he said. Both he and the Minister for Health, Alba Vergés, insisted on asking the population to not relax the measures to avoid contagion. "We cannot lower our guard. What we do now will determine the harshness of January", Vergés warned.

In this call to reduce interaction, the Minister for Home Affairs, Miquel Sàmper, also called for Christmas meals to be "with as few people as possible". Sàmper argued that if meetings of 10 people are allowed, "it does not mean" that this maximum should be reached.

The deputy director of Civil Defense, Sergio Delgado, asked for "good ventilation" of interior spaces, to have windows open during visits, as well as to avoid coinciding in small spaces, such as the kitchen, where you have to wear a face mask; in addition to maintaining a meter of distance at the table between people who do not live together.

A set of warnings and recommendations coming from both experts and the Government that seek to prevent Christmas, New Year's Eve and January 6th celebrations from becoming the start of a third wave that might exceed the terrifying figures recorded between March and May.