Flu epidemic begins to subside, but tensions rise in hospitals Society

Flu infections, which skyrocketed in the last fortnight of December, have already peaked. The first week of the year saw a slight decrease in incidents compared to the previous week. But, if citizens learned anything during the pandemic, it’s that an increase in infections is followed by another increase in hospitalizations. And this is happening now: admissions continue to rise and the strain on hospitals increases.

For all respiratory infections, the Spanish average has gone from 966.2 cases per 100,000 inhabitants to 935.1, representing a decrease of 3.2%, according to data published this Thursday by the Health Institute Charles III.

Drops are most common in flu, the virus that is most prevalent this season. Sentinel health centers (which represent a representative sample from which general data are extrapolated) detected 387.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, a decrease of 10%. Covid, however, rose slightly to 98.8 cases per 100,000, up 6%. Hospitalization rates for all respiratory viruses increased 9.1% to 33.5 per 100,000 residents.

Both the distribution and trends of cases vary greatly by region. Castilla-La Mancha, despite a slight decrease, remains the community with the highest incidence of respiratory viruses (1,691.3 per 100,000). Aragon, where they are increasing, is now in second place (1,338.3), ahead of the Valencian Community (1,318.9), where they are decreasing.

It is important to observe the trends because it depends on them whether communities will have to make masks mandatory in health centers, as ordered by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday, or whether they can move towards a simpler recommendation. For this, the health imposed that they should reduce incidents for two consecutive weeks.

Andalusia, Asturias, Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Galicia and Madrid are the autonomies in which the incidence has already decreased in the first week of the year. If the trend continues next week, they may make masks more flexible in health centers and hospitals. The Basque Country and Melilla both had two consecutive weeks of declines, but Carlos III did not update the data.

The Euskadi government has implemented the mandatory nature of masks, but has announced that it is going to appeal the order of the Ministry of Health, because, according to the complaint, there was no prior agreement from the Interregional Council of the National Health System. The autonomous communities were not even heard before taking this decision.

Eliminate fragmentation in health centers

The data released this Thursday reflected the state of health centers in general, which no longer represented the decline seen during Christmas. In addition to the reduction in cases, two other factors intervene: on the one hand, they are recovering employees who are on vacation, which gives them more resources to deal with the respiratory virus epidemic. On the other hand, according to Lorenzo Armenteros, spokesman for the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (SEMG), besides the fact that the use of masks has become common, patients no longer present with “minor” symptoms.

“There is more risk of coming to centers and more telephone consultations with respiratory procedures. Media information has been more effective than institutional information,” warns Armenteros, who assures that it is something that does not happen in an emergency, which maintains a very tight level of care.

This statement is supported by José Manuel Fandino, member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES): “It depends on the communities. All of them have average historical care demand data, but some, like Navarre, have seen a roughly 20% increase in demand for hospitalizations due to the flu (expected to peak in about 7 to 20 days). And others like Galicia, with a decrease of 10%-15% compared to the previous week.”

Fandino explains that now what health workers call a “drain on pending activity” is more strongly felt, that is, people waiting in the emergency room are taken to their destination floors and services. If this is not resolved, the emergency circuit is “not fully functional” and patients do not have “adequate conditions of dignity and privacy”. “It’s not that emergency services are saturated, it’s hospitals that are saturated,” he concludes.