Health prepares a new COVID traffic light that raises the incidence considered low risk to 100
The traffic light used to measure the situation of the pandemic in Spain and decide restrictions will change. The Public Health Commission will debate this Tuesday a new version that updates the criteria to the current context - in which the majority of the population is vaccinated -, according to has advanced the newspaper El País and has confirmed elDiario.es.
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Until now, an incidence of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants marked the difference between low and medium risk. If Public Health approves the draft it is working with on Tuesday, that indicator will rise to 100 cases, according to information from El País. The high risk will be reached when reaching 300 cases; the very high, at 500 cases.
Cumulative incidence is not the only indicator taken into account to establish these alert levels. Other indicators such as hospital occupancy or ICU occupancy are also assessed. The new draft adds other indicators on the evolution of this healthcare pressure, such as the number of new admissions in the last week.
The traffic light recommends different measures to apply depending on the level of alert in which each territory is, but the autonomous communities have room to decide whether to apply them or not. The draft proposes that in places with alert level 1 the capacity of bars and restaurants be limited to 80%. For level 2, a capacity of 50% is established and a maximum of 15 people per group. For level 3, the total closure of the interiors is recommended.
Technicians from the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities had been working for months on this review of the thresholds to measure the pandemic. The traffic light currently in force was designed for a very different situation than the current one, without the effect of mass vaccination.
Health registered this Monday an incidence of 82 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, ten points more than on Friday, after adding 9,798 new infections during the weekend. Authorities have also reported 43 more deaths in the past three days. The autonomous communities with the highest incidence are Navarra, with 203 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, and the Basque Country, with 174.
