Another week or two needed to determine if Catalonia is entering a sixth Covid-19 wave

According to Enric Álvarez, of the BIOCOMSC research group, it will be possible to determine whether Catalonia is entering a sixth Covid-19 wave in another week or two.

"Trends have clearly changed," he said on Saturday morning in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, warning that the positivity rate, that is, the percentage of all coronavirus tests that are positive, is growing rapidly.

"If it keeps on rising the way it has this week and last, this means we are at the beginning of a sixth wave," he said.

If this is the case, Álvarez explained, it remains to be seen how this will translate into pressure on the primary care system and hospitals, although he noted that Catalonia does have a higher vaccination rate than that of other European countries. 

Covid-19 figures have not been updated on Saturday due to technical issues, but the most updated data, from November 11, shows a positivity rate of 2.72% over the previous week, up from 1.86% a week before that and 1.71% two weeks earlier.  

As of November 11, 2021, there have been 1,012,849 confirmed Covid-19 cases and a total of 24,045 people have died. 6,000,554 residents have been given the first dose of the vaccine, 75.9% of the total population. Out of those, 5,166,789 have also been administered a second dose (65.5% of the total population). 5,902,286 residents are considered to be fully immunized (74.5%).