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In the last week of October, we had 420.6 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Lethality increased by 50%. The projections put the maximum of hospitalizations at the beginning of December and the deaths in the second week.
With Portugal reaching daily highs, both in the number of new cases and in those admitted to intensive care units (ICU), the data shows that we are still at the center of the European table in terms of incidence. And they allow projections: the peak of the second wave points to the last week of November. After a cascading effect: ICU at its peak in early December and deaths reaching 80 / day in the second week of that month. With certainty, the ICU will have more than 300 hospitalized in the next three months (there were already 340 yesterday).
Going through parts. In a European analysis, the figures released yesterday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) – and reporting the last week of October – show that the incidence, measured by the sum of new cases in the last 14 days per 100,000 inhabitants, increased 42% compared to the previous week, to 420.6. On a European average, the incidence was set at 496.0.
The fatality, in the same period, increased by 50%, to 33.6 deaths from covid per 100,000 inhabitants. Here also below a European average of 40.2. It should be noted that the highest value was reached at the end of April, when we reached 42.1 deaths / 100,000 inhabitants.
Does this mean we are okay? No. Only there are those who are much worse than us, like Belgium, with an incidence of 1785.6. Figures that prove that “the European countries – Europe represented, the day before yesterday, half of the new cases worldwide – were slow to assume that there was a second wave”, observes the mathematician Carlos Antunes.
17 thousand more deaths
The projections, with associated uncertainty, among other things because the impact of the state of emergency is not measurable, are made to JN by a professor at the Lisbon Faculty of Sciences who supports Professor Manuel Carmo Gomes, an epidemiologist who is part of the group of experts from the General Directorate of Health and the Doutor Ricardo Jorge National Institute of Health (INSA), which advises the Government in the fight against the pandemic. And they place the peak in the last week of November, when we should be at 6,500 new cases daily. In the northern region it will arrive earlier, in the middle of the month, with 3,500 to 4,000 new infections daily.
Follow a snowball. First, in hospitalizations, with calculations by Carlos Antunes estimating the maximum at the beginning of December: 2,795 hospitalized in wards and 455 in ICU. Which means “a deficit of beds”, if only the capacity of the NHS is used, today with 2370 beds in wards and 373 in intensive beds. In other words, “we have a month for the NHS to prepare.” Without a doubt, he underlines, that “we will have more than 300 inmates in the ICU until mid-January.”
As for the deaths, the peak of the second week of December is indicated, with 80 daily deaths. “It’s a lot,” he says, especially since the fatality, today with an average of 50 deaths / day, “was a very big surprise.” On the negative. Calculations made, an excess of mortality is estimated, this year, around 17 thousand. 7000 for covid and the rest for the “side effect of the pandemic.” That is, the difficulty in accessing the SNS.
“R” drops one hundredth / day
The R indicator, which tells us the average number of secondary cases that result from an infected person, is decreasing at the rate of one hundredth / day. The data released yesterday by INSA put the R at 1.14, on November 1, but the mathematician updated it on day 3 (average of the last five days), at 1.15. The maximum was recorded on February 26: 2.38. Since August 5, the R is above 1.0.
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