The Governing Council has taken note of the Covid-19 report on the situation in Andalusia during the first quarter of 2023, which indicates that, since mid-February, when the incidence of cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the age of 60 recorded its lowest peak, the number of infections has been increasing until the end of March, which is considered to be a slight upturn in cases.
Thus, while on 14 February, the incidence rate was 21.69 cases, on 28 March it rose to 42.89 (21.2 points higher), which means a rise of 97.74%. The provinces with the highest incidence at the end of March were Malaga (72.47 cases), Jaen (58.37), Almeria (45.57) and Huelva (45.24). On the other hand, those with the lowest incidence are Cádiz (16.21 cases), Córdoba (28.91), Granada (34.67) and Seville (36.68).
The report points out that the incidence in the over-60s is not homogeneous; it increases according to age, with the over-80s showing the highest rates (in recent weeks figures close to 100 cases per 100,000) and the 60-69s the lowest (around 30 cases per 100,000).
Similarly, the incidence in institutionalised patients has behaved similarly to that in the over-60s, although with higher incidence values. There was an increase in the incidence in institutionalised patients in the last weeks of 2022 and first weeks of 2023, subsequently decreasing to very low values, rising slightly in the second half of February and stabilising since then with rates between 400 and 500 cases per 100,000.
On the other hand, cases hospitalised by Covid-19 and ICU have shown a similar evolution in this first quarter to the number of cases per 100,000 population. Thus, while the first weeks of January saw a total of 271 hospitalised cases, 21 of which were in the ICU, by mid-February both figures had dropped to 106 hospitalised cases, of which 4 were in the ICU. These figures have seen a slight upturn up to 28 March, when 146 cases were recorded, of which 14 were in ICU. In terms of deaths, 314 people died in the autonomous community in January, February and March as a result of Covid-19. Similarly, the highest figure was at the beginning of January, with 58 deaths in the week of 24 February, falling to 16 in the weeks of 14 and 21 February. Since then, the figure has fluctuated downwards, continuing at 16 deaths in the last week of March.
During this first quarter, the circulating variant of SARS-Cov2 has been Omicron, which has been circulating since the end of 2021. During this period, there has been a succession of different Omicron lineages, which has not resulted in large increases in the incidence of the disease. During the first quarter of 2023, the BQ.1 lineage began to dominate and has been gradually replaced by recombinant lineages (XBB and variants).