The president of the Junta de Andalucia, Juanma Moreno, chairs this Monday , January 3, in Malaga a meeting of the Regional Committee of High Impact on Public Health , better known as a committee of experts, to decide whether to adopt new measures in the face of the increase in infections of coronavirus with the advance of the sixth wave and the expansion of the Omicron variant , which has led the community to register the highest daily numbers of infections and incidence rate of the entire pandemic.
Specifically, Andalusia recorded last Friday, December 31 , the latest data released by the Ministry of Health, 15,471 new infections in 24 hours and raised itsincidence rate at 14 days in 119.5 points up to 1,213.9 cases per 100,000 inhabitants , 541.7 points more in just one week.
For its part, the number of hospitalized stands at 1,108 until last Friday, 182 of them admitted to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) . The Minister of Health and Families, Jesus Aguirre, already advanced in early December that if there were more than a thousand hospitalized by Covid, as has happened during the last week, restrictions should be adopted.
There will be no curfew
Moreno
himself advanced last Monday, December 27that this increase in infections would require “making some decisions” according to the committee of experts, although it made it clear that “restrictions such as those of the Generalitat de Catalunya are not on the table, nor are there curfews or measures as harsh as in others autonomous communities “because the Andalusian Government wishes that they “affect economic and productive activity as little as possible”.
The Andalusian chief executive then defended that, although the level of incidence is “extremely high” and reaches values ​​not known in the entire pandemic , the community presents one of the lowest 14-day rates in all of Spain and stressed that vaccination has allowed translates into a “much lower clinical incidence”, since he even admitted that if these data had been given during “the third wave, we would be talking about hundreds of deaths.”
The Board met its expert committee for the last time on December 9 , when it decided to expand the possibility of requiring the Covid certificate of vaccination, recovery or negative test -PCR in 72 hours or antigen test in 48 hours carried out by authorized center– for those who access hotel and nightlife establishments, a measure already in force until January 15 after being ratified by the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA).
Three provinces at level 2 and five at level 1 of Covid alert
At that meeting, the committee of experts also decided to eliminate the restrictions on capacity and schedules foreseen in risk levels 1 and 2. Since last Wednesday, level 2 of the Covid alert has been in force in all health districts of three provinces, Cordoba, Seville and Malaga, while those of the remaining five provinces, Almeria, Cadiz, Granada, Huelva and Jaen, are at alert level 1, although this does not imply limits on capacity and hours in shops, hotels, nightlife and other activities.
The last meeting of the committee of experts already advanced a series of recommendations for Christmas events and referred specifically to the Cavalcades of Kingsto suggest that they be carried out in large spaces, increasing the route if necessary, to avoid the crowding of people.
Similarly, he proposed increasing the frequency of public transport that goes to the areas with the highest concentration of people and maintaining the use of the mask in said public spaces and during the course of these Christmas events, even if they are outdoors.
The meeting of the committee of experts chaired by Moreno will take place at 11:30 at the Government Delegation of the Andalusian Government in Malaga , and at the end of it, Minister Jesus Aguirre will address the media to report on the agreements adopted.
