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. 2023 Jul 18;23(1):476.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-023-08454-y.

Hospitalization burden and epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain (2020-2021)

Rafael Garcia-Carretero  1 , Oscar Vazquez-Gomez  2 , Ruth Gil-Prieto  3 , Angel Gil-de-Miguel  3
Affiliations

Hospitalization burden and epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain (2020-2021)

Rafael Garcia-Carretero et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

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.

Keywords: COVID-19; Health care; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Population pyramids for hospital admissions and mortality
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Time series showing the evolution of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in Spain in 2020 and 2021. The red line denotes the 7-day moving average, whereas the gray bars denote absolute numbers of hospital admissions
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Geographic distribution of hospitalizations by region, attending to the population of each region. Data are expressed as hospitalizations per 100,000 population
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Age-standardized (adjusted) mortality rate per region, using the direct method
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Ratios of both admissions to the intensive care unit (ICU) and deaths among hospitalized patients
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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