The Ministry of Health has said that it is facing new difficulties in both tracing curbing the spread of the pandemic, in the Valencian Community currently going through its fourth wave while in the remainder of Spain it is considered the fifth.
One of the problems that the department now faces is the difficulty of traceability in certain outbreaks, especially those related to social encounters between young people, as they often don’t want to say who they were with.
Currently, the accumulated 14 day incidence in the 15 to 29 years age group, according to the latest figures provided by Health, is 1,381 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, double what it was two weeks ago and a figure that is well above the general average in the Valencian Community, which last Thursday marked 540 cases.
That is why the focus is especially being made on social contacts (outbreaks in this area represent 81%, with the alert being linked to birthday parties, family gatherings and meals with friends).
One of the last most prominent outbreaks reported recently occurred just a few days ago at a student graduation party at a restaurant in Valencia, where 38 cases were detected.
The trackers are often running into difficulties. “Often these young people do not want to say who they were with,” they explained reporting that they were extremely vague in the information they are able to provide.
“They tell you that they do not know who they were with, or they only remember first names and claim not to know the contact.”
Beyond the fact that on some occasions their ignorance may be genuine, sources from the Ministry speculate that there is a ‘pact of silence’. “They think that many prefer not to involve their friends, that they cannot be infected and they want to avoid being confined.”
Meanwhile, the president of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig , appealed at the meeting of the Interdepartmental Table held last Thursday, that the general public cooperates with the tracers and although he didn’t specifically highlight young people he did say that, in recent weeks, one in five people admitted to ICU due to covid was under 35 years of age.
According to data from the Ministry at the beginning of July, the Valencian Government had just over 1,600 trackers, to which 50 more military were recently added.
Last Thursday, the autonomic positivity rate stood at 17.4%, the fourth highest in Spain: which means that out of every 100 people who are tested, more than 17 are infected. The World Health Organization considers that at just 4% of this indicator the pandemic is “out of control”.
