SPAIN TOP NEWSPAPERS: “Thousands of Unknown Cause of DEATHS, Spain Health Ministry Baffled”

💭 España registra un gran exceso de muertes y Sanidad no sabe la causa

💭 የስፔን አንጋፋ ጋዜጣዎች፡– “በሺህ የሚቆጠሩ የማይታወቅ የሞት መንስኤ፣ የስፔን ጤና ጥበቃ ሚኒስቴር ግራ ተጋብቷል”

Aún no hay consenso científico sobre las causas concretas del exceso de muertes en España, pero los expertos señalan varios factores. “Es un año muy malo de mortalidad y es peor todavía de lo que parece”

💭 Los brotes, las mayores incidencias y la saturación de los hospitales que se están produciendo durante la segunda ola de coronavirus en España son para los expertos el preludio de un repunte de la mortalidad que parece estar tomando forma según el último informe del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), que observa un tercer periodo de demasía entre el 1 y el 27 de septiembre en el que se produjeron 2.722 muertes más de las esperadas. De ellas, el 81 % (2.192) se corresponden a casos de COVID-19.

👉 Courtesy: EL PAÍS + El Mundo

💭 There is still no scientific consensus on the specific causes of excess deaths in Spain, but experts point to several factors. “It’s a very bad year of mortality and it’s even worse than it looks”

The last half year has been, by far, the one more deaths has registered in Spain since the Covid and since there are comparable records. The more than 10,000 that has officially caused the virus and almost 5,000 attributed to heat they are already worrying figures.

But the biggest problem is in excess mortality from all causes, amounting to 27,060, well above the data for 2020 and 2021 in the warm six months of the year, from May to October. The total since January already accumulates 33,165.

What is happening? No one knows exactly. According the daily mortality monitoring system for all causes ( Momo ), not only have there been records in total deaths, but also in attributable to heat, which are 4,800. In addition, they have been accounted for 10,410 deaths by Covid in the last six months. Even if we add these two causes, there would still be 11,850 more deaths not attributed to the climate or the virus.

In that same period, between May and October, the excess of deaths was 14,567 in 2020 and 10,004 in 2021. Therefore, the unexpected deaths in these last six months exceed those of the two previous courses together. Or, in other words, almost double those of 2020 and triple those of 2021, always attending to the warm months. In fact, the excess of deaths in these last six months of 2022 already exceeds that observed throughout 2021, including winter, which was 24,490.

“It is a very bad year of mortality and it is even worse than it seems, because there is a thing called a harvest effect, which is the premature collection of mortality, “explains Salvador Peiró, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration ( Sespas ) and researcher at Fisabio.

The effect is as follows: in a health crisis, many vulnerable people die, among others, who, under normal conditions, would have done so during the following months or years. So, there comes a time when statistics begins to reflect fewer deaths of those expected.

“The expected situation behind the Covid waves would be a mortality defect, not an excess, because many people who had died in the following year had already died from Covid. However, we have not noticed that effect, “says Peiró. Most of the excess mortality in recent months is concentrated in summer, with 19,218 deaths not expected. Many of them, this expert shuffles, could actually be linked to heat, even if statistics do not attribute them. “But this is all speculative. What we know is that there is an excess of mortality”, he adds.

In any case, the effect of extreme temperature would always add to other causes, since heat stroke, by itself, causes very few deaths. In this sense, more and more studies point to the fact that SARS-CoV-2 infection, although overcome, leaves us in a more vulnerable situation. “At least for the year following the Covid, there are people who have an increased risk of mortality from various causes cardiovascular: heart attacks, stroke … “, reviews Peiró. Which leads us to the following hypothesis: what happens if heat and Covid interact?

“There may be interactions between factors, and the model we have for pure heat may not be the same as a model for heat plus having passed the Covid. It is possible that one cause increased the other: that we were not adding, but multiplying. There is probably a component to it too. We probably have many effects at once, “sopes the Sespas spokesman. Another unusual fact that leaves 2022 is that its greatest excess mortality has occurred in summer, when heat waves and Covid coincided, and not in winter, as usual.

The trend is still worrying: the excess deaths observed in October doubles that of last year, with more than 1,500 unexpected deaths, none attributed to temperatures, and still pending the update of the last days. Is he seventh consecutive month that records an excess in 2022, while the three years prior to the pandemic -2017, 2018 and 2019- had fewer deaths than expected in October.

Excess mortality, which is the difference between deaths expected according to the statistical average and those that actually occur, is affecting other European countries this year, like the United Kingdom or Germany, although in Spain it has been especially pronounced.

Another possible cause of the excess we are suffering, apart from those we do not yet know, It could be the crisis in the health system, which has not adequately cared for vulnerable people in recent years. “Grow up the heat and the unsolved health problems in 2020 and 2021, plus the Covid cases that contribute to dying with and not by Covid, since Covid causes or worsens other diseases, “summarizes Jeffrey Lazarus, co-director of the ISGlobal Viral and Bacterial Infections Program, a center promoted by the” La Caixa “Foundation”.

“Dying with Covid, even if it’s not from Covid, is also a major public health problem. And there will be many people who do not die, but lose quality of life, “says Lazarus, author of important work on the pandemic. “You have to assume that people continue to die for Covid, with Covid and indirectly for Covid; for example, people who were found late for cancer. And there could be other causes that escape us, “says Joan Caylà, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Epidemiology and president of the Foundation of the Tuberculosis Research Unit.

“No one can say the percentages, but here there may be people who really would have died for Covid; others with Covid; others, due to chronic problems that have not been adequately addressed, “Caylà lists. “And there would even be the possibility of an epidemic of deaths from other causes, but it would not be very great, because it would have been detected,” he said. “Mortality figures are impressive and objectify the importance that Covid has had, also indirectly”.

What we already know is that SARS-CoV 2 causes “a lot of symptoms”, Not only pneumonia, and we will soon learn more, as science continues to advance, about the cardiovascular and other consequences that the pandemic has left us. Maybe that’s one of the keys. “With the cryptization strategy, you wanted to compare Covid and the flu, and they are not the same, “Caylà warns.

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