Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S Health Minister, Carolina Darias, has urged ‘caution’ as the sixth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is showing signs of subsiding.
COVID cases currently stand at an average of 3,279 infections per 100,000 people across the country after three consecutive daily falls.
Speaking on Friday, Carolina Darias, said: “We’ve had three days of decline and stabilisation of figures that show the current evolution of the pandemic but we need to be cautious as the situation consolidates.”
She warned the virus is ‘still circulating at a very high level’.
Despite COVID infections more than seven times higher than a year ago, vaccines have produced a different picture.
Darias pointed out that a person vaccinated aged between 60 and 79 years old is 16 times less likely to be hospitalised; 29 times less likely to go to an ICU; and 20 times less likely to die.
The Minister stressed the importance of continuing with the booster dose programme and referred to a survey from Madrid’s Carlos III Health Institute.
It revealed that a third dose for people aged over 65 increases by 17 the neutralising antibodies against the Delta variant and ten times against Omicron.
Darias added that over 50% of children between 5 to 11 years had already received their first vaccine shot, totalling 1,650,000 injections.
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