Nearly 10% of the Spanish population may have contracted the coronavirus at some point, half of them during the second wave of the pandemic, according to the preliminary results of the fourth wave of a seroprevalence study released on Tuesday.
Results indicate that 9.9% of Spain’s 47 million residents have developed antibodies after exposure to the virus, said the head of the Carlos III Health Institute, Raquel Yotti. The first wave of the study, in May, showed that 5% of the population had developed antibodies; in July that figure had risen slightly to 5.2%.
The director of the National Epidemiology Center, Marina Pollán, noted that during the first wave of the coronavirus in Spain, only one out of every 10 cases were being detected. “Right now, in this second wave of the epidemic, we might be detecting around 60%.”
The study was done between November 16 and 29 at 1,500 healthcare centers, with 51,709 participants, 63% of those who took part in earlier rounds.The Spanish government is asking citizens not to let their guard down, as the latest data suggests that the recent downward trend in coronavirus infections may have come to an end. The country on Monday reported the first rise in weekend cases in five weeks, and experts have warned that Spain is going into the Christmas holidays with a higher incidence rate than it had at the beginning of summer.
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