The Community breaks a new record for daily positives, with 7,635, and days that will touch 10,000 are expected
That the Region marks a new record of daily coronavirus infections has ceased to surprise. In each balance that the Ministry of Health offers in the morning, another record is reached. Yesterday 7,635 positives were reported, a thousand more than the previous day, and 2,600 above the figure of Tuesday of last week. In seven days, more than 30,000 Murcians have been infected with Covid.
In addition, the Epidemiology Service fears that there is still to reach the peak. Sources from the Ministry of Health indicated that the curve is not expected to begin to decline until the end of January, so several days of increases are still expected, in which the figure could be around 10,000 positives. The maximum in the third wave, experienced last winter, was 2,072 infections detected in 24 hours, on January 13, 2020. It must be taken into account that Health plans to carry out massive screenings every day for at least the next two weeks, where the detection level will be high.
The mathematical projections of other experts are a bit more optimistic. The Physics professor at the University of Murcia Antonio Guirao Piñera, who is conducting studies for the Carlos III Institute, maintains that the peak of infections in the Region will be reached by the end of this week or next. Of course, he believes that the summit will not be crowned and there will be an immediate descent, “as in an isosceles triangle”, but that once the record is set, the very high figures will remain for a time before they begin to fall.
Since November, there have been almost as many deaths (130) as in the first wave (150), despite the fact that the vaccine prevents a worse situation
This “massive infection”, in which Antonio Guirao Piñera estimates that one in three Murcians will pass the Covid (the WHO calculated on Monday that one in two Europeans will be infected with Ómicron), will have serious consequences in hospitals and deaths until the end of February, in the most optimistic scenario. The projections of the Professor of Physics at the UMU indicate that it could reach 800 hospital admissions, 300 more than the current ones, with its consequent impact on ICUs.
“The positives will go down because the virus will not have people left to infect,” says Professor Antonio Guirao
There are currently 488 people admitted to hospitals in the Region of Murcia, with 90 in intensive care.
“The worst remains”
Regarding deaths, the expert recalls that the beginning of this sixth wave in the Region must be placed at the beginning of November, when the incidence began to rise, with Delta as the predominant variant. In this time, 130 Murcians have died (7 notified yesterday, with ages between 65 and 94 years, two without vaccination), almost as many as in the first wave. “And there is still the worst,” predicts Antonio Guirao Piñera, who is very afraid that the final balance of this “massive infection” will be close to 500 deaths. To put it in context, in the third wave (the one that occurred after Christmas 2020, the most serious of all those experienced since the beginning of the pandemic) there were 800 deaths. “This should lead us to reflect on the current strategy to combat the pandemic. Because it is true that, thanks to the vaccination and the supposed less ferocity of Ómicron, the percentage of infected that end up in hospitals, ICUs and deceased is much lower than when the vaccine did not exist. But in absolute terms, we are talking about totally unaffordable numbers », declares the professor.
“Another difference with previous waves is that this time the curve will decline as a result of measures adopted by the authorities. The contagions will decrease because the virus will not have people left to infect, it will run out of fuel “, reflects Guirao.
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