Influenza continues to fall and the number of people admitted for covid in Catalonia decreases

The incidence of influenza continues to decline after the epidemic peak recorded at Christmas and covid-19 follows stabilized at low levels, with a decrease in the number of inpatients, now less than 500.

Epidemiological data from the week of January 9 to 15 made public by the Department of Health continue to show that the meetings of family and friends during the Christmas vacations have not led to an upturn acute respiratory infections, whose incidence is stabilized at low levels.

The flu is still the most frequent virus (16.3% of sentinel system samples), followed by rhinovirus (13.7%), rhinovirus (13.7%), rhinovirus respiratory syncytial virus (10.3%) and SARS-CoV-2 (6,4%).

However, both influenza and RSV continue to decline, and coronavirus fluctuates at low levels, with an estimated overall rate of 41 cases per 100,000 population (previous week it was 45).

The number of persons admitted with covid continues to decline, which now number 467, representing 90 fewer than the previous week (557), with a high proportion of patients over 60 years of age (82.3%).

As for the uci, continue to stabilize at very low levels, with only 24 patients, and covid mortality (with provisional data) was 22 deaths last week.

Care pressure

Despite the decline in the incidence of acute respiratory infections, the assistance pressure is maintained in various hospital emergency departments, which are attended by elderly patients or patients with other pathologies that are decompensated by the viral infection.

A week ahead of the medical strike on January 24 and 25, in the primary care have slightly increased the number of diagnoses of acute respiratory infections in the first week after the end of the Christmas vacations: 48,636 cases were detected, compared to 48,180 the previous week.

In any case, the volume is lower than the cases diagnosed in the last week of 2022. (53,504) or those in mid-December (72,740 weekly cases).