Hospitalization burden and epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain (2020–2021)
- Open Access
- 01-12-2023
- COVID-19
- Research
Published in:
- Authors
- Rafael Garcia-Carretero
- Oscar Vazquez-Gomez
- Ruth Gil-Prieto
- Angel Gil-de-Miguel
- Published in
- BMC Infectious Diseases | Issue 1/2023
Abstract
Background
Spain had some of Europe’s highest incidence and mortality rates for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Here we describe the epidemiology and trends in hospitalizations, the number of critical patients, and deaths in Spain in 2020 and 2021.
Methods
We performed a descriptive, retrospective, nationwide study using an administrative database, the Minimum Basic Data Set at Hospitalization, which includes 95–97% of discharge reports for patients hospitalized in Spain in 2020 and 2021. We analyzed the number of hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units, and deaths and their geographic distribution across regions of Spain.
Results
As of December 31, 2021, a total of 498,789 patients (1.04% of the entire Spanish population) had needed hospitalization. At least six waves of illness were identified. Men were more prone to hospitalization than women. The median age was 66. A total of 54,340 patients (10.9% of all hospitalizations) had been admitted to the intensive care unit. We identified 71,437 deaths (mortality rate of 14.3% among hospitalized patients). We also observed important differences among regions, with Madrid being the epicenter of hospitalizations and mortality.
Conclusions
We analyzed Spain’s response to COVID-19 and describe here its experiences during the pandemic in terms of hospitalizations, critical illness, and deaths. This research highlights changes over several months and waves and the importance of factors such as vaccination, the predominant variant of the virus, and public health interventions in the rise and fall of the outbreaks.
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- Title
- Hospitalization burden and epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain (2020–2021)
- Authors
-
Rafael Garcia-Carretero
Oscar Vazquez-Gomez
Ruth Gil-Prieto
Angel Gil-de-Miguel
- Publication date
- 01-12-2023
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Keywords
-
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2
Vaccination - Published in
-
BMC Infectious Diseases / Issue 1/2023
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2334 - DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-023-08454-y
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