- Alicante Province registers a further 28 deaths in last 24 hours
- Health confirms 28 more deaths and 449 new cases of coronavirus in the Community in 24 hours
- Barceló announces the spread of 485 health workers and the discharge of 44 patients since the start of the crisis
- Current figures for Spain – cases 47,610, an increase of 5,552 with a further 443 deaths taking the total to 3,434
Health has confirmed that the Covid-19 crisis than another 449 cases have been diagnosed in the Community in last 24 hours, 40 of them in the province of Castellón, 229 in the province of Alicante and 180 in Valencia. This brings the total number of infections to 2,616 since the beginning of the crisis.
So far there have been 143 deaths, 28 more than on Tuesday, of which 11 have occurred in the province of Alicante, 71 in Valencia and 61 in the province of Castellón. Of the 1,071 patients admitted to hospital, 198 are in the ICU, of which 23 in Castellón, 61 in Alicante and 114 in Valencia.
The total of infected healthcare workers, as confirmed by the Minister, Ana Barceló, is 485 (the number has increased by 71 from yesterday) and a total of 1,870 professionals have additionally enrolled into the volunteer pool.
Barceló has said that the percentage distribution of positive cases in the region by age group: 8% of cases correspond to people aged 0-30; 45% are between 30 and 60 years old; 33% between 60 and 80 years old and 14% of positives are over 80 years old. In terms of deaths, 91.4% of people are over 75 years of age.
To date there have also been 44 discharges (seven more than the previous day): 28 in the province of Valencia, 14 in Alicante and 2 in Castellón. A total of 8,543 tests have provided negative results and more than 42,000 coronavirus-related calls have been answered, while the self-test website has registered more than 2 million visits.
In Community care Homes, there are positive cases in 45 centres in the region (28 residences in Valencia, 11 in Alicante and 6 in Castellón).
The increase in cases is now beginning to test the capacity of hospitals to cope with the pandemic, which, in addition to a high number of infections, is also generating very long hospital stays, in some cases of up to three weeks.
According to sources the constant increase in the number of cases has led, in recent hours, to the General Hospital of Alicante, the largest in the province, to begin referring patients to private clinics.
These are patients who are not affected by Covid-19 and whose state of health is not serious. With these referrals the medical staff are trying to gain additional space in order to admit coronavirus patients, with the pandemic expected to reach its peal this coming weekend, according to the Minister of Health, Ana Barceló yesterday.
Among one of the first measures taken by the Generalitat was to make private hospitals available to the National Health service for patient care. In addition, Barceló said yesterday that everything is being prepared to be able to transfer people with mild symptoms of coronavirus admitted to Valencian hospitals to other facilities such as hotels, with the aim of leaving hospitals for those people with more severe symptoms.
