Covid is recovering moderately in Castile and Leon and has caused 86 people to be hospitalized at the plant.

The most circulating respiratory pathogens are rhinoviruses and enteroviruses, parainfluenza 3, metapneumoviruses, and mycoplasma pneumonia; although an increase in the number of sentinel and non-sentinel samples positive for SARS-CoV-2 and influenza B viruses was also found.

Emergency rooms and hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses have increased slightly over the past week, especially among people age 75 and older. The number of cases is increasing, but public health “cannot rule out that this is something limited in time and low intensity.” Over the past two weeks, 367 cases of PCR have been identified in older people.

Regarding hospital stays, there were no cases requiring admission to the intensive care unit; but there are currently 86 people hospitalized at the Castile and Leon plant. This represents 2% of beds dedicated to infected patients. Of these, 57 required hospitalization for Covid or bilateral pneumonia compatible with it (66.28%) and the remaining 29 were hospitalized for another reason but tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (33.72%).

Valladolid, with 35 patients in Rio Ortega and 15 in the clinic, is the province with the most cases in the department, followed by Avila with 11 patients, as well as Leon and Salamanca with seven cases each. Just yesterday, Tuesday, the Ministry of Health registered 63 new cases, of which 51 were diagnosed on May 20. And since May 11, 2022, 7,693 deaths have been registered in medical complexes. The total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic is 10,524 in hospitals and 20,095 overall.

But this coronavirus “still remains a pandemic virus and is expected to increase beyond the winter season. It doesn’t take significant changes in the weather for it to reappear,” emphasizes Public Health Director Sonia Tamamez Gómez.

He also explains that there are three fundamental reasons behind this generally small increase. “It should be noted that this happens not only with Covid, it also appears with other respiratory viruses, even in the summer there is flu. But Covid, because of everything that has happened and because we are monitoring it more, is also being diagnosed more often, and if there is an increase, there is more awareness. Moreover, immunity eventually declines, it runs out, both natural immunity and immunity from vaccines, and it has certainly declined now, and we also have to take into account that viruses change, they may take away their genomic advantages, but the latter do not seem to do so; is happening, but the variant has already stabilized,” he notes. And the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has updated the vaccine, and JN1 will be introduced next season,” he notes.

Dr. Tamames adds that we will probably get vaccinated in the fall along with the flu and see if a booster shot will be necessary. This coronavirus is not so affected by environmental conditions, there was good humidity and low temperatures; which does not contribute to its expansion,” he adds.

The agency has recommended updating COVID-19 vaccines to use this new variant for the 2024-2025 vaccination campaign. The composition of Covid-19 vaccines has changed three times since they were first approved in 2020. Like any RNA virus that infects humans, it is prone to rapid evolution due to the accumulation of mutations in its genome during replication in the human host. In addition, new variants of SARS-CoV-2 may arise as a result of recombination between co-circulating strains of the virus.

In October 2023, the last time pandemic monitoring dropped from the “low” level to move to the “controlled level”, which has since been used in Castile and Leon and Spain. Although it has never completely disappeared, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 remains so low that the most it has added this year among people over 60, which is monitored, is just over 180 cases. per hundred thousand inhabitants, and in recent months from 5 to 8 per said population. We need to wait until the summer of 2022 to determine the “average” risk of disease. Until the current rebound.