MADRID / London: The European Health Care System is detained once again by the rapid spread of Omicron variants from Coronavirus during the holiday period, with a large number of key sick staff or isolation of themselves and experts who predict the peak of infection has not yet arrived.
Although initial studies show a lower risk of severe disease or hospitalization from omicron compared to the dominant Delta variant, health care networks in Spain, England, Italy and surrounding areas have found themselves in a state of despair.
On Friday, England began to spread military personnel to support hospitals experiencing lack of staff and extreme pressure due to record Covid-19 cases in this country.
“Omicron means more patients to care for and fewer staff to care for them,” said Medical Director National (NHS) Professor Stephen Powis in a statement.
In the United States, hospitals delay elective surgery to free staff and beds, while Spain’s main health care network is so tense that on the second day of the 2021 authorities in the northeastern region of Aragon ratio, reincoration retired workers and nurses.
“Exponential increase in this case means primary care can carry out contacts and their vaccination campaigns are adequately, or their usual activities,” the authorities said in a statement.
Frontline workers such as nurses and physiotherapists are the hardest blows, the Satse of the Spanish nursing union said, quoting an example of Andalusia where they contributed more than 30% of staff on leave related to Covid in the second half of December.
The southern southern region, the place where British and German has settled, Registered approximately 1,000 workers infected with Coronavirus in the last weeks of this year, “producing a big problem in service coverage”, said the statement.
The level of infection increased sharply in the Netherlands, the infection rate also increased sharply among hospital staff, especially nurses and nursing assistants, Dutch Daily de Telegraaf reported on Friday, after a survey of eight main hospitals.
In the worst case, one in four was positively tested in run-up to Christmas, such as in the Amsterdam University medical center where 25% of staff are now testing positive, compared to 5% a week ago.
Dutch hospitals contemplate changing their quarantine rules so that infected staff who do not have symptoms can work, De Telegraaf said, as the Dutch daily case number broke the record even though the chef was tight since December 19.
In Italy, the problem of infected health workers – more than 12,800 according to data collected last week – was exacerbated by the suspension of doctors, nurses, and administrative staff who were not vaccinated and represented more than 4% of total labor.
The peak on the horizon in the offer of the last ditch to install a gap in service, Italian health agent is a holiday of freezing staff, delaying them into other periods, and freezing or delaying scheduled operations not classified as “urgent”.
With their highest hospitalization since last February, the NHS is likely to be stretched even thinner because of the Covid-19 surge among parents, British health minister Sajid Javid on Friday.
“We still see increased hospitalization, especially with the level of cases rising in older age groups.
That is a concern,” Javid said in a broadcast clip.
“I think we must be honest when we see the NHS, it will be a few weeks ahead.” On average about 80,000 medical staff are not present from work every day of the week until January 2 – the latest period available data – a 13% increase in the previous week, according to the British NHS.
Nearly half of the absence, or 44%, was caused by Covid-19, a more than fifth increase from the previous week.
Rafael Bengoa, one of the founders of the Bilbao Health and Former Healthy Institute and former senior, said Spain failed to take sufficient steps to strengthen service and vital pressure to continue for several weeks.
“Spain has several weeks – basically all January – from increased cases, hopefully we will hit the highlands that go down as quickly,” he told Reuters.
He considered it imply that more infectious variant which was also more deadly than Omicron will appear and optimistic that the current wave might mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
“Pandemics doesn’t end up with a large boom but with small waves because so many have been infected or vaccinated.
After Omicron we don’t have to care about anything more than small waves.”