Hospital pressure already resembles that of the first wave with 621 covid patients in ICUs

BarcelonaThe evolution of the covid-19 pandemic in Catalonia is still worrying. Despite the slowdown in the rate of new infections in recent days and signs of a downward trend in the epidemiological curve, the spread of the virus is very high and the number of hospitalisations already exceeds the peak of the second wave in October. In fact, pressure on healthcare is already close to that experienced in March and April, during the first wave. At this point there are 2,844 admissions and 621 seriously ill patients in intensive care. Of the 1,013 ICU beds occupied throughout Catalonia, six out of every ten are already being used exclusively for coronavirus patients.

The forecast is that healthcare pressure will increase even more in the coming days, even weeks, leaving the health system in an extremely fragile situation. In fact, the director of the Catalan Health Service, Adrià Comella, assured this Thursday that the coming weeks will be "very hard" and hospitalisations are closer to the first wave than the second. "It will have nothing to do with the situation in October," he admitted.

In this regard, he recalled that the great growth in hospitals in this third wave began with a very high baseline occupation, with more than 300 beds already allocated to the covid. "We think we will have up to 900 people admitted for covid, plus the 300 people we usually have because of accidents and emergencies and who we can not stop admitting," he said. "The limits of the system are what they are and the volumes will be very high again: we will have to reorganise ourselves," insisted the director of CatSalut. In view of these unfavourable forecasts, Comella has admitted that the system fears a "possible overflow" in the event that the 900 covid admissions in intensive care are exceeded.

"The infection curve is improving a little, we are stopping it with the restrictions, but the pressure on care is very high. It has multiplied in a matter of weeks, and we are already exceeding the thresholds of the second wave," explained the Minister of Health, Alba Vergés. "Very intense days lie ahead for the healthcare system," she predicted. The great challenge will be to maintain the usual activity of the centres, knowing that many hospitals have already had to suspend or postpone delayed activity in the operating theatres to free up beds for covid patients.

Effective Potential Growth, which warns of major growth, has been falling since 13 January and, despite more tests (100,000 more than the previous week), the positivity of the tests has been reduced from 11% seven days ago to the current 8.63%.