Talk:Epidemiological indicators

The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. First wave: from the first cases to the end of June 2020

Monographs from the National Atlas of Spain. New content

Thematic structure > The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain > Overview > Epidemiological indicators

Statistical graph: Evolution in the number of COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions and admissions to ICUs due to COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. 2020. Spain.PDF. Datos.

The number of COVID-19 cases is the indicator that most accurately reflects the epidemiological situation at any given time, whilst the data on hospital admissions and deaths are shown with a certain time lag. However, all these data are influenced by the limited diagnosis capacity during the initial phase of the pandemic.

73,103 COVID-19 cases were registered in the province of Madrid during the first wave of the pandemic as well as 46,989 in the province of Barcelona and around 8,000 in the provinces of Biscay (Bizkaia), Navarre (Navarra), Valencia and Ciudad Real. The month of March was the period that registered the greatest increase in absolute terms. In relative terms, however, there was a clear concentration in the provinces of Biscay (Bizkaia), Álava, La Rioja, Navarre (Navarra), Barcelona, Lleida, Cáceres and the provinces of Castile and León (Castilla y León) and Castile-La Mancha (Castilla-La Mancha), where the cumulative incidence was very high. The data for the provinces of Ciudad Real, Albacete and the axis linking Salamanca-Madrid-Navarre (Navarra) (between 1,000 and 3,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) are particularly noteworthy, reaching in some cases five times the national average figure (577.8). The territories with the lowest cumulative incidence in absolute and relative terms were Asturias, Badajoz, Murcia, Andalusia (Andalucía) and the Canary Islands (Canarias).

The impact of the first wave of the pandemic amongst healthcare professionals was very high, i.e. one in five cases were healthcare workers. Also, a large part of this impact fell on women, as the group of healthcare professionals is largely female. These noteworthy data could be linked to the difficulties in supplying personal protective equipment at the beginning of the pandemic, the initial lack of knowledge on how the virus itself behaved and the easier access to diagnosis for healthcare professionals. The peak time of infection amongst healthcare professionals was in March. The figures showing the number of healthcare workers infected during the first wave of the pandemic were high, i.e. 15,344 cases in the province of Madrid, 3,354 in the province of Barcelona, around 2,000 in the province of Biscay (Bizkaia), and 1,000 in the provinces of Valencia and Ciudad Real. In proportional terms (infected healthcare workers compared to the total number of cases), provinces such as Biscay (Bizkaia), Álava, Cuenca and Granada (between 20 and 25%) were more than 5 percentage points higher than the national average (15.3%), and some others, like Asturias, Tarragona, Guadalajara and Santa Cruz de Teneriffe (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), were even higher than 25%.