12 April 2020 (Brussels, BE) – Matthew Bennett is a long time connection I met through my journalism group. He does detailed independent reporting and analysis of the news from Spain … in both English and Spanish … which he posts here: www.thespainreport.es. We usually meet up every year in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.
Here is his analysis of the situation in Spain.
It’s the 48th day of my Coronavirus chronicle in Spain. The Ministry of Health announces that we officially have 161,852 cases and 16,353 dead. But still unanswered are the nuances of “high”, not “cured”.
On the weekend after two holidays, there have officially been 510 new deaths since yesterday.
Totals: 161,852 , +4,830
Highs: 59,109, +3,441
Discharge rate: 36.52%
Dead: 16,353, +510
Death rate: 10.10%
So the question that arises: if they are “high” or “cured”, and since one is not discharged from their health center, we also do not know if the result of the subtraction (Total – dead – high) are “active” or “hospitalized” cases.
The daily variation of the main figures. Here the last seven days of “active” or “hospitalized” or whatever that figure is in reality of the Ministry of Health.
+1,488
+1,279
+1,964
+610
+929
+468
Today: +879
But when compared to the last issued mortality report to be able to contrast all this data, the records do not match. After seven weeks of the Coronavirus emergency in Spain, with fatal results for thousands of citizens, legitimate criticisms and questions arising about the role of the national operating system — ministries and autonomies — in the management and logistics of all this, there is no confidence in the Coronavirus figures for Spain. There has been no sincere, accurate national accounting.
Now they have announced a health plan to start returning to work tomorrow (Monday, 13th April) and the “plan” consists of four elements:
• washing hands
• 1-2 meters of interpersonal distance
• hygiene in public spaces and
• wearing masks if available.
But there is the same general confusion: who goes to work and who does not? What do I do if I don’t have a mask? So what do we do with my children? Etc., etc. To lift confinement, the WHO recommends this criteria:
Does Spain meet any of these points? This weekend the WHO warned governments in a hurry to lift confinement that “lifting restrictions too soon without a criteria could lead to a deadly resurgence. The downhill can be as dangerous as the climb if not managed well” .
Just looking at the first point of the WHO criteria list to start lifting the confinement, here is the case graph in Madrid, the epicenter of the pandemic in Spain. The last seven days:
+1,335
+1,139
+1,746
+1,981
+1,427
+906
+1,066
Is that controlled transmission? We are seeing that the famous R0 figure is already below 1 in all the autonomous communities:
What effect will returning to work on Monday have on this key figure?
Here is the Health guide to return to work on Monday: what is “a hygienic, not a medical mask”?
Our biggest problem: over the weekend the Spanish Health Ministry admitted that based on increased testing, at least 15 of every 16 people infected with the coronavirus in Spain – more than 90% – have not been officially registered. The majority of experts agree that the number of people who have had the SARS-CoV-2 virus is much higher than the official number of 161,852, the latest figure released by the Spanish government. Some studies even suggest that the real amount could stretch into the millions.