checks out what's inside the Solidarity Fridge and it's "amazing" to be able to help himself to healthy food from Galdakao's communal refrigerator At a Basque restaurant nestled in the green hills just outside the Spanish city of Bilbao head cook Itziar Eguileor gestures toward a dumpster out back "This all used to go into the garbage," she says lugging a huge pot of leftover boiled artichokes load them into our old Land Rover and drive them over to Solidarity Fridge." Deliveries like Eguileor's arrive several times per day at the Solidarity Fridge, a pioneering project in the Basque town of Galdakao The goal is to avoid wasting perfectly good food and groceries the town established Spain's first communal refrigerator so that no one mistakes it for an abandoned appliance Anyone can deposit food inside or help themselves This crusade against throwing away leftovers is the brainchild of Alvaro Saiz who used to run a food bank for the poor in Galdakao "The idea for a Solidarity Fridge started with the economic crisis — these images of people searching dumpsters for food — the indignity of it That's what got me thinking about how much food we waste," Saiz told NPR over Skype from Mongolia living in a yurt and building a hospital for handicapped children Saiz says he was intrigued by reading about a scheme in Germany in which people can go online and post notices about extra food and others can claim it But Saiz wanted something more low-tech in his hometown of Galdakao — something accessible to his elderly neighbors who don't use the Internet So he went to the mayor with his idea for a Solidarity Fridge How could I say no?" says Mayor Ibon Uribe "We approved a small budget of 5,000 euros [about $5,580] right away to pay for the fridge and an initial health safety study And we granted this fridge a special independent legal status so that the city can't be sued if someone gets sick." Homemade food must be labeled with a date and thrown out after four days one of the volunteers who cleans out the fridge poses with the rest of the kitchen staff at their eatery in Galdakao The staff used to throw away several pounds of leftover food each night but now they haul it over to the Solidarity Fridge "Restaurants drop off their leftover tapas at night — and they're gone by next morning," he says "We even have grannies who cook especially for this fridge you'll find it stocked with ribs and sausage." When NPR visited on Monday, the fridge was filled with fresh vegetables — tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini — from a local community garden, along with unopened cartons of milk and jars of lentils and baby food. There were also pintxos — Basque tapas — wrapped in plastic and labeled with the date The pintxos were especially appetizing to Issam Massaoudi an unemployed Moroccan immigrant who stopped by to check out the Solidarity Fridge's offerings to be able to come here and open this fridge and find really good food — bread Galdakao Mayor Ibon Uribe (left) and volunteer Javier Goikoetxea pose in front of the Solidarity Fridge The Solidarity Fridge may be the legacy of Spain's economic crisis the unemployment rate is about 13 percent — nearly half that of the rest of Spain The Basque region's welfare state is robust The Basque country has a special relationship with food especially in nearby cities like Bilbao and San Sebastian food is sacrosanct — it's something that's venerated We have one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-starred restaurants per capita in the world," Uribe says and the Solidarity Fridge is part of that." Another Solidarity Fridge has opened in Murcia And elementary schools have been organizing field trips to the original fridge in Galdakao to teach children how to cut down on food waste Become an NPR sponsor Everyone from vulnerable families to peckish builders are taking leftover goods left dropped off by local people in Galdakao The large white fridge sits prominently on a pavement in Galdakao, a small city on the outskirts of Bilbao. A wooden fence has been built around it, in the hope of conveying the idea that this is not an abandoned appliance, but a pioneering project aimed at tackling food wastage. For the past seven weeks, Galdakao, population 29,000, has been home to Spain’s first “solidarity fridge”, in which residents and restaurants can drop off leftover or unused food otherwise destined for the bin. Anything left in the fridge can be picked up by anyone who wants it. “I would guess we’ve saved between 200 and 300kg from the rubbish bin,” said organiser Álvaro Saiz. A typical day might see leftover lentils, a few sandwiches and unopened milk cartons left in the fridge. Read moreThe idea came about as Saiz and other members of the city’s volunteer association were reflecting on the sheer amount of food being thrown out by supermarkets. “We started to think that if even just one of their rubbish bins was replaced with a fridge, people could take advantage of these items.” After an online search revealed a network of shared fridges in Berlin, he said. “We realised we could do this – so we did.” It took about a month to wade through the paperwork needed for the project, including securing a permit from the city to use public space and obtaining the right legal documents to ensure organisers wouldn’t be held liable should anything go wrong with food taken from the fridge. Galdakao’s ‘solidarity fridge’. Photograph: Ashifa KassamAs his group pushed forward with the idea, they heard all sorts of opinions from city residents, said the 36-year-old. “I realised that the people who don’t support it, it’s because they don’t understand what we’re doing.” The goal, according to Saiz, isn’t to feed people in need. “This isn’t charity. It’s about making use of food that would otherwise end up in the bin,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who takes it – Julio Iglesias could stop by and take the food – at the end of the day it’s about recovering the value of food products and fighting against waste.” There are strict rules for anyone leaving food in the fridge: no raw fish, meat or eggs, packaged or canned goods cannot be past their use-by date and anything prepared at home must include a label detailing when it was made. Read moreVolunteers keep an eye on the fridge to throw out anything past its use-by date or homemade dishes that are more than four days old But that’s in theory: so far all food has been taken on a daily basis All sorts of people have dropped by so far including those in need who make a special trip to the fridge from nearby towns and a construction worker who took an ice-cream bar – dropped off with just a few days left before its best-before date – during his lunch break some 400 miles away in the the south of Spain copied the idea and became the second Spanish city to host a solidarity fridge Saiz has received calls from communities across the country – and from as far as Bolivia – from people interested in setting up similar operations The fridge has also allowed local restaurants to alleviate guilt over their food wastage “Before we used to throw away a lot of food – and it was food that was fine to eat.” He and the staff at the busy restaurant in the centre of Galdakaonow regularly make time to drop off their leftovers in the fridge “You know someone is enjoying it,” he said “It’s like giving our food a second chance to end up in someone’s stomach.” A joint venture in which ACCIONA participates has been selected by ETS Euskal Trenbide Sarea (Basque Railway Network) to build the second section of Line 5 of the Bilbao Metropolitan Railway between Aperribai and Galdakao The works will include the platform and track superstructure of that section and the Olabarrieta and Abusu ventilation and emergency galleries The project has an awarded budget of €88.1 million and a completion period of 48 months The joint venture in charge of the section is equally formed by ACCIONA and has been chosen among five consortiums to execute the project due to its extensive experience in the execution of railway tunnels which is the greatest technical hurdle of the project It is expected that the machines will start drilling next September and thus begin the construction of the three sections of line 5 one of the most important projects pending execution in the region The commitment of the institutions promoting the route (the Basque government and the provincial council) is that the trains will reach the center of Galdakao in 2027 ACCIONA has outstanding technical credentials and extensive experience in the development of urban mobility solutions the company has built more than 3,000 kilometers of track of which 1,200 kilometers are high-speed lines The company also has extensive experience in subway construction with more than 600 kilometers of tunnels completed or the award-winning Legacy Way tunnels in Brisbane (Australia) ACCIONA has participated or participates in the construction of subway lines in cities around the world such as Madrid I accept Information on data protection In compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on Data Protection and with other Data Protection regulations in force you are hereby informed that your personal data shall be processed by Acciona whose identification data are as follows: Tax ID No (NIF): A08001851; Address: Avenida de la Gran Vía de Hortaleza No.: +34 91 663 28 50; email: protecciondedatos@acciona.com Your data shall be processed in order to send you information through the subscription to our Newsletter through electronic means activities and news pertinent to our activity sectors The consent given by the data subject by indicating that they have read and accept this data protection information comprises the lawfulness of processing the subscription Request cannot be satisfied We may also process your satisfaction or preferences Data shall be stored until the elimination is requested we may give access to your data to service providers (such as technology service providers) who assist us in fulfilling this purpose may be located outside of the European Economic Area in territories that do not offer a level of data protection that is comparable to that of the European Union we transfer User data with appropriate safeguards and always ensuring the security of the same The data subject can exercise their rights of access to or rectification and/or the restriction of or objection to the processing of such data by writing the Department of Data Protection located at Avenida de la Gran Vía de Hortaleza 28033 (Madrid) or by sending the form available in the link: FORM If we consider it necessary in order to be able to identify you, we may ask you for a copy of an identity document. Furthermore, at any time the data subject may withdraw the granted consent by contacting the aforementioned address and file a claim to the Supervisory Authority (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos www.aepd.es) You can also unsubscribe from the Newsletter communication For any further information you can visit the Privacy Police on the website https://www.acciona.com/privacy-policy/ Bizkaia.  The event began with mass at noon at the Andra Mari church in Elexalde Galdakao in memory of all of the deceased of the community Robert Odriozola Sertutxa and Edurne Urresti de Ayerdi.  After socializing in Elexalde over fifty people headed to Galdakao’s batzoki where the meal took place.  the attendees honored and presented a gift to one of their veteran members.  This year’s recipient was Mª Carmen Garate de Atxurra who at eighty years of age was the oldest member of the gathering the youngest member present was Olatz Muñoz Leunda who is just thirteen months old “Since this year’s gathering coincided with Holy Week our numbers were down a bit,” Amaya Zenarutzabeitia indicated to EuskalKultura.com.  Although long established in Euskadi Amaya was born in Caracas and is the one responsible for organizing the event annually.  The event’s attendance tends to vary from fifty this year to over 150 in previous years This year’s gathering marked the sixteenth edition which began being organized in a different place every year somewhere in the Basque Country including Arrieta although in recent years it has been taking place in Galdakao.  Among last Saturday’s attendees was Josu Legarreta former director of Relations with Basque Communities Abroad of the Basque Government Children’s reading and writing develop better when they are trained in handwriting 38% of the annual electricity consumption of Vitoria-Gasteiz could be produced by fitting photovoltaic panels onto the city’s rooftops an accessible AI tool for analysing biomedical images Factors associated with hospital admissions ICU stays and mortality in patients who have had SARS-CoV-2 are identified and clinical prediction rules are developed Using basic information on 380,081 patients in the Basque Autonomous Community infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus collaboration between mathematicians from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and medical staff from the Galdakao-Usansolo Hospital has led to the proposal of a set of risk scales that are very easy to calculate have a high predictive capacity and also function with the Omicron variant These scales may be of use in primary care emergency departments and hospital admissions especially because the infection itself and the characteristics of each of its variants are variable The disease is not expected to disappear in the short or medium term so the associated characteristics and factors related to poor outcome need to be continually analysed so that treatments can be adapted rapidly and It is therefore essential for health care services to develop predictive models to make available more information on the health status of patients and to predict the risk of deterioration or having to be admitted to an ICU Researchers in the UPV/EHU’s Department of Mathematics together with medical and research staff from the Galdakao-Usansolo Hospital have used data from 380,081 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the ACBC between 1 March 2020 and 9 January 2022 to come up with a predictive model The UPV/EHU lecturer Irantzu Barrio explained that “we have identified factors related to hospital admissions of people who have been infected have poor evolution (having to be treated in the ICU or dying) and mortality We have seen which factors in the general population of the ACBC (Basque Autonomous Community) can be used to predict one of the three situations mentioned and we have created a set of scales to measure how severely affected the patients are” The model was developed before the Omicron variant emerged so it has been validated with data on infections acquired with this variant as well The members of the research team are satisfied with the good results achieved: “We have come up with a good model that can also be used with new variants.” The researcher also pointed out that this is a study carried out on a population level the better and more rigorous the results obtained will be” a set of risk scales are proposed; they are very easy to calculate and have a high predictive capacity only baseline variables: other diseases of the patients the collection of data at the population level makes the database very complex,” said Barrio These scales can be of great help to primary care emergency department and hospital care professionals but to know the degree of risk a SARS-CoV-2 infected patient has depending on their characteristics and other ailments of evolving poorly in the short term,” explained the lecturer The UPV/EHU’s Mathmode research group validation and subsequent preparation of predictive models by means of computer tools which can be used by professionals This is not the first time they have worked together with the Galdakao-Usansolo Hospital they have been collaborating for many years on statistical research relating to various diseases: “We have explored the evolution of people who have had some kind of cancer heart failure or the quality of life of oncology patients etc.” Barrio stressed the importance of teamwork: “It is very important for professionals from different areas to collaborate and complement each other They set objectives and we have to be able to see which alternatives are the most methodologically appropriate for investigating it.” They are currently continuing to work with the database created for this research This study has been carried out in collaboration with Osakidetza (ACBC public health service) and the Department of Health of the Basque Government Metrics details An Author Correction to this article was published on 12 May 2022 This article has been updated Despite the publication of great number of tools to aid decisions in COVID-19 patients there is a lack of good instruments to predict clinical deterioration COVID19-Osakidetza is a prospective cohort study recruiting COVID-19 patients We collected information from baseline to discharge on: sociodemographic characteristics Outcome was need for intensive ventilatory support (with at least standard high-flow oxygen face mask with a reservoir bag for at least 6 h and need for more intensive therapy afterwards or Optiflow high-flow nasal cannula or noninvasive or invasive mechanical ventilation) and/or admission to a critical care unit and/or death during hospitalization We developed a Catboost model summarizing the findings using Shapley Additive Explanations Performance of the model was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic and prediction recall curves (AUROC and AUPRC respectively) and calibrated using the Hosmer–Lemeshow test 1568 patients were included in the derivation cohort and 956 in the (external) validation cohort The percentages of patients who reached the composite endpoint were 23.3% vs 20% respectively The strongest predictors of clinical deterioration were arterial blood oxygen pressure levels of several markers of inflammation (procalcitonin CRP) and alterations in blood count and coagulation ATC AO2 (antiacids) and N05 (neuroleptics) were also among the group of main predictors AUPRC 0.21 and Hosmer–Lemeshow test statistic 0.36 We present a machine learning-based prediction model with excellent performance properties to implement in EHRs Our main goal was to predict progression to a score of 5 or higher on the WHO Clinical Progression Scale before patients required mechanical ventilation Future steps are to externally validate the model in other settings and in a cohort from a different period and to apply the algorithm in clinical practice Our hypothesis is that is possible to predict clinical deterioration in hospitalized patients before the need for intensive ventilatory support Knowledge about the characteristics of such patients must be the basis of decision support systems to improve triage systems allowing physicians to decide advanced treatments and COVID19-Osakidetza is a sub-study within COVID19-REDISSEC (clinicaltrials.gov # NCT04463706) a prospective cohort study recruiting patients infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) confirmed by naso- and/or oropharyngeal swab polymerase chain reaction (PCR) We used anonymized patient level data from patients with a confirmed COVID-19 admitted to one of four public hospitals in the Basque Country Participating hospitals serve a population of approximately 1.2 million and provide tertiary referral services to the surrounding region We excluded any patients admitted to these hospitals in the same period but who died in the emergency department or were immediately or in the first 24 h of the hospital stay admitted to a critical care unit or reached the endpoint We also excluded patients who arrived at hospital more than 10 days after their first positive PCR test or tested positive by PCR later than 7 days after admission Data were internally stored and managed by the Osakidetza-Basque Public Health System After anonymisation and removal of protected health information the data were released in a text-delimited format for research purposes Patient-level data were collected for the initial analyses in our study The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Basque Country (reference PI2020059) The Basque Country Ethics Committee (PI2020059) approved the waiver of informed consent The study was carried out in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations We collected data on demographic variables (age Comorbidities were assessed based on International Classification of Diseases Tenth Revision codes that were active on the patients’ electronic health records (EHR) on arrival to the emergency department (ED) We categorized them according to whether the date of diagnosis was in the previous year or earlier Baseline treatments were assessed based on the Anatomical Therapeutic and Chemical/Defined Daily Dose (ATC/DDD) index in the EHR and we categorized them into treatments prescribed in the last 6 months between > 6 and 12 months earlier and between > 12 months and 5 years earlier (older treatments being excluded) Patients were considered to have no comorbidities or treatments if none were documented in the EHR we collected information from the ED and up to the first 24 h after admission This information was related to vital signs: temperature oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry and fraction of inspired oxygen We also gathered data on the most recent lab results (for tests performed up to 1 month before admission) Our outcome was a composite endpoint defined as need for intensive ventilatory support (with at least standard high-flow oxygen face mask with a reservoir bag for at least 6 h and need for more intensive therapy afterwards or Optiflow high-flow nasal cannula or noninvasive or invasive mechanical ventilation) and/or admission to a critical care unit and/or death during hospitalization Development and internal validation dataset We downloaded patient-level data for the period March 1 to April 30 without replacement and randomly assuming a uniform distribution to create two independent sets of patients assigning 70% of the sample for development of the prediction model and 30% for internal validation Data were pre-processed to address quality issues such as allowing the elimination of repeated entries for some patients and exclusion of features with more than 25% of missing data from the list of potential predictor variables was composed of other patients with COVID-19 admitted from May 1 to October 7 We used this dataset as the external validation sample and it was pre-processed using the same process as that used the development and internal validation dataset the demographic and clinical data recorded for these patients were consistent with those of the patients in the development and internal validation cohorts we performed univariate analyses of the differences between patients whose condition did and did not deteriorate using Student’s t test for continuous features and the χ2 test for categorical features We set the p value threshold for significance at 0.05 in these and other analyses in this study data normalization is not necessary and categorical variables do not need to be pre-processed This is a unified approach for explaining the outcome of any machine-learning model SHAP values evaluate the importance of the output resulting from the inclusion of feature A for all combinations of features other than A Features being shown in blue indicates that their values are less likely to predict the outcome while values of those shown in red are more likely to be predictive We performed four-fold cross-validation in the training set to identify the optimal hyperparameters through a random hyperparameter search and compared the training models through fourfold cross-validation area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) We also used logistic regression implemented using the Scikit-learn library as baseline model to evaluate and compare Different models obtained in the development set were applied to the internal validation set and the model that performed the best based on the AUROC in this latter set was selected We also calculated the area under precision recall curve (AUPRC) in development internal validation and external validation sets We explored the calibration of models by means of a calibration plot and the Hosmer–Lemeshow Test12 which assesses whether or not the observed event rates match expected event rates in subgroups of the model population identifying subgroups as the deciles of fitted risk values Based on the distribution of the outcome across the predicted probability in the development and internal validation dataset which were tested in the external validation dataset We calculated the performance parameters for each risk group SAS software was used for the univariate analysis and Python to pre-process data and develop the model with the CatBoost method The authors give their consent for publication For the analysis, 1568 patients were included in the derivation set, corresponding to 87% of the PCRs selected, while 956 patients were included in the validation set, corresponding to 85% of the PCRs selected. The percentages of patients who reached the composite endpoint were 23.3% vs 20.0% respectively (p value = 0.05) (Fig. 1). Predictive performance of the catboost model in (a) derivation and (b) validation sets We used SHAP values to provide consistent and locally accurate attribution values for each feature within the prediction model Patients who reached the endpoint obtained the lowest values for partial pressure of oxygen monocytes and eosinophils and the highest values for CRP antacids and/or diuretics were more likely to deteriorate than those who did not Calibration plots are shown in Fig. 4, the Hosmer–Lemeshow test p value being < 0.001 in the development cohort and 0.3654 in the validation cohort. Calibration performance in (a) derivation and (b) validation sets the lowest group being the most sensitive and the highest group the most specific The negative predictive value ranged between 0.81 and 0.99 across the risk groups the variable representing patients risk stratification was defined considering the cut-off points mentioned above and creating complementary risk groups We have developed and validated a clinical prediction model including routinely available information recorded in the EHR This model includes chronic treatments prescribed at baseline lab results and vital signs on arrival at hospital and predicts poor course in patients with COVID-19 before transfer to an ICU it is expected that it could improve triage systems allowing earlier identification of patients who are likely to need intensive ventilatory support These decision support systems must be feasible and have to be continuously updated to detect variations in patients’ characteristics that make them differently vulnerable including patients who will need standard high-flow oxygen face mask with a reservoir bag if we want to identify the whole spectrum of patients who develop severe forms of this disease We believe that these predictors occurred late in the presentation of the disease; in contrast our work provides clinicians and health managers an aid to take earlier decisions to achieve the greatest possible accuracy in our predictions since we envisaged its implementation in the EHR and depending on the pre-selected decision threshold physicians would receive the performance parameters automatically to aid their decision-making We derived the model in the first months of pandemic differences between patients in the derivation and external validation cohorts were expected While there were differences in sociodemographic characteristics we did not detect differences in comorbidities except for dementia This could be due to the availability of hospital beds beyond the first months of the pandemic patients with dementia were more likely to be treated in care homes Other differences were encountered in inflammatory markers and other lab results values being slightly better in patients in the validation cohort than in those in the derivation cohort; nevertheless these differences were not clinically significant our model was sufficiently robust to identify patients at risk of clinical deterioration under new conditions presenting excellent performance properties in other settings/circumstances Such variations in blood cell counts with the progression of the disease are to be expected but we provide the probability of poor outcomes depending of the magnitude of these variations adjusted for other characteristics of the patients and this is another strength of our work Differences between traditional development and machine-learning based prediction models Data available on request from the authors A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12247-9 Current Pandemic Situation (Spanish Ministry of Health Herd Immunity and Implications for SARS-CoV-2 Control (2020) Acute respiratory failure in COVID-19: Is it “typical” ARDS Chidambaram, V. et al. Factors associated with disease severity and mortality among patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 15(11), e0241541. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241541 (2020) Wu, G. et al. Development of a clinical decision support system for severity risk prediction and triage of COVID-19 patients at hospital admission: An International Multicentre Study. Eur. Respir. J. 56, 2001104. https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.01104-2020 (2020) Clinical medicine using machine learning to predict ICU transfer in hospitalized COVID-19 patients Clinical characteristics and prognostic factors for intensive care unit admission of patients with COVID-19: Retrospective study using machine learning and natural language processing Development and validation of the ISARIC 4C deterioration model for adults hospitalised with COVID-19: A prospective cohort study Multimodal assessment of teaching behavior in immersive rehearsal environment—TeachLivETM Rodríguez-Pérez, R. & Bajorath, J. Interpretation of machine learning models using shapley values: Application to compound potency and multi-target activity predictions. J. Comput. Aided Mol. Des. 34, 1013–1026. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10822-020-00314-0 (2020) A minimal common outcome measure set for COVID-19 clinical research Izcovich, A. et al. Prognostic factors for severity and mortality in patients infected with COVID-19: A systematic review. PLoS ONE 15(11), e0241955. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241955 (2020) Association of red blood cell distribution width with mortality risk in hospitalized adults with SARS-CoV-2 infection + supplemental content conclusions and relevance elevated RDW at the time of hospital admission and an increase in RDW during hospitaliza Temporal changes in laboratory markers of survivors and non-survivors of adult inpatients with COVID-19 Effect of acid suppressants on the risk of COVID-19: A propensity score-matched study using UK biobank Repurposing chlorpromazine to treat COVID-19: The reCoVery study Oddy, C. et al. Pharmacological Predictors of Morbidity and Mortality in COVID-19. 61(10), 1286–1300 www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf cardiovascular medications and cardiac events on outcome in COVID-19 Performance of pneumonia severity index and CURB-65 in predicting 30-day mortality in patients with COVID-19 Utility of established prognostic scores in COVID-19 hospital admissions: Multicentre prospective evaluation of CURB-65 Download references We are grateful for the support of the Basque Health Service-Osakidetza and the Department of Health of the Basque Government We also gratefully acknowledge the patients who participated in the study and the COVID-Redissec Working Group The authors also would like to thank Ideas Need Communicating Language Services for improving the use of English in the manuscript This work was supported in part by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Regional Development Fund COVID20/00459; the health outcomes group from Galdakao-Barrualde Health Organization; the Kronikgune Institute for Health Service Research; and the thematic network–REDISSEC (Red de Investigación en Servicios de Salud en Enfermedades Crónicas)–of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III The funder of the study had no role in study design A list of authors and their affiliations appears at the end of the paper Department of Applied Mathematics and Operational Research Virginia Fernandez & Cristobal Esteban Kronikgune Institute for Health Services Research Red de Investigación en Servicios Sanitarios y Enfermedades Crónicas (REDISSEC) Biocruces Bizkaia Health Research Institute Servicio de Evaluación y Planificación del Servicio Canario de la Salud Complejo Hospitalario Universitario Insular-Materno Infantil de Gran Canaria Adolfo Muñoz & Ricardo Saenz de Madariaga The COVID-REDISSEC Working Group contributed to the data collection The authors declare no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations The original online version of this Article was revised: The original version of this Article contained an error in Affiliation 2 which was incorrectly given as ‘Cambrian Intelligence The correct affiliation is ‘Cambrian Intelligence SLU Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09771-z Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science 2015 (()=>{var e=async t=>{await(await t())()};(self.Astro||(self.Astro={})).load=e;window.dispatchEvent(new Event("astro:load"));})();How A Single Fridge Is Helping Curb Food Waste In Spain By Meera Dolasia - 448 words 3 minutes Photo Credit: United Technologies Food waste is a growing concern According to a recent report by the United Nations Environmental Programme consumers in industrialized countries waste as much as 222 million tons of food annually that is almost equivalent to the net food production of sub-Saharan Africa Now the residents of the small Spanish town of Galdakao have devised a simple solution to help reverse the trend — a community refrigerator the frigorífico solidario or “solidarity fridge,” is situated in the center of the small town and supermarkets stock it with excess cooked food produce or drinks that are nearing their expiry date The town's 29,000 residents or even those living in nearby areas can browse through the offerings and take whatever they need eggs and packaged or canned goods past their expiry dates are prohibited donors are required to list all the ingredients Though volunteers check the refrigerator daily to ensure the food has not expired That's because since solidarity fridge was installed about two months ago the donated food gets consumed the day it arrives Alvaro Saiz and other members of Galdakao's volunteer association which came up with the brilliant idea say they were inspired by similar initiatives undertaken by towns and cities all across Germany. Unfortunately, if a recent ruling in Yolo County, California is any indication the "solidarity fridge" will not be making an appearance in the USA anytime soon a group of enterprising students at the University of California set up a similar public refrigerator in their front yard to share food It was a huge success until the county officials deemed it an "illegal" food facility and ordered it be removed and donating unused safe food to food banks can make an impact in preventing unnecessary waste too Reply 0 Likes Luciana 10 years ago Wasting food is bad Reply 2 Likes Fabulous 10 years ago WOW Reply 1 Like pandy123 10 years ago I think that this is an excellent way to not waste food and you don't think you can eat all of it it is a good idea to put it in the outdoors refrigerator Reply 1 Like DEEZ NUTS 10 years ago I LIKE THE SITE Reply 1 Like clo 10 years ago That is wierd having a fridge in the middle of nowhere Reply 0 Likes kat123 10 years ago we should have this in the USA cause than I would get food whenever Reply 0 Likes Jay 10 years ago Dont wast food is the meaning but why so much money!!!!????????????????? Reply 0 Likes izzylan 10 years ago That is weird having a fridge in random places🍔🍔🍔🍟🍟🍟!!!!! Reply 0 Likes genius1326 10 years ago The US throws away too much Reply 2 Likes izzylan 10 years ago I must agree!!!😀😀 X (Twitter) © 2025 DOGO Media By 2023-06-20T05:00:00+01:00 SPAIN: Local infrastructure manager Euskal Trenbide Sarea has selected a joint venture of Acciona, Sacyr, Altuna y Uria and Bycam to build the central section of Bilbao metro Line 5 The 2·8 km section of the planned 6·3 km Line 5 would link Aperribai with Galdakao the construction of Bengoetxe and Galdakao stations and the Olabarrieta and Abusu ventilation and emergency shafts The mostly underground Line 5 would replace the existing double-track surface route used by Euskotren and Bilbao metro services between Etxebarri and Usánsolo It is intended to better serve the densely populated districts in the Ibaizabal valley to the east of the city centre and serve five intermediate stations before reaching Usánsolo where they would rejoin the existing railway The Basque regional government gave final approval for the construction of Line 5 in October last year Works on the central section are expected to start in September and be completed in four years The full Line 5 is planned to be completed by 2029 SPAIN: Metro de Bilbao has announced a €736m plan to increase capacity by 12% by upgrading its metre-gauge network and replacing its oldest vehicles Communications-based train control is to be installed at an estimated cost of €130m This would enable headways to be reduced and provide .. SPAIN: Euskotren has awarded CAF a contract to supply five Class 980 trainsets in 2026-27 for use on the future Bilbao metro Line 5 The 6·6 km Line 5 is under construction between Sarratu and Gldakao in the eastern suburbs of Bilbao SPAIN: The Basque regional government has given final approval for construction of Line 5 of the Bilbao metro network Site powered by Webvision Cloud A Spanish woman who swallowed a toothbrush as she was choking on a slice of ham has spoken out about the bizarre incident in a bid to warn others Haizea returned to her home in Galdakao in the Basque Country from university last Wednesday 29 November like any other day and snacked on some ham The 21-year-old at first thought it had just "gone down the wrong way" but then she started to struggle breathing "I felt like I was drowning," she told SUR but he couldn't act quickly as he was in a wheelchair with a ruptured achilles tendon "He couldn't help me quickly," Haizea said So in that moment of desperation she tried to pull the slice out without thinking twice Her next instinct was to grab a toothbrush and "Suddenly I noticed that the brush was going further into my mouth Her family drove her to the hospital in Galdakao where an X-ray revealed the plastic toothbrush was inside her She was told she would have to have a gastroscopy She woke up after the procedure to find the toothbrush next to her pillow Comentar es una ventaja exclusiva para registrados a total of 15 municipalities in the Basque Country have joined the European Mobility Week 2016 to encourage healthy mobility habits that are environmentally respectful for their citizens led by the European Union with all member countries will be held from the 16 to the 22 of September The Vitoria-Gasteiz and Bilbao streetcars and the San Sebastian train will bear the motto selected by the European Union are some of the municipalities that will be participating in the European Mobility Week with different initiatives to promote a shift toward zero-emissions urban logistics in urban hubs These municipalities make up 5% of the total in Spain that have joined this European campaign as of now According to the Basque Government's Minister of the Environment and Territorial Policy "the campaign organised by the European Commission for this year Strong economy," will be focused on sustainable mobility's positive impact on the economy while the advantages obtained with greater use of public transport and sustainable transport methods but also have an impact on quality of life and health for citizens." The purpose of the European Mobility Week is to activate a forum for citizens to reflect on mobility and how to use streets in urban hubs providing specific solutions to address challenges such as air pollution The 15 Basque municipalities participating in the EMW 2016 have followed one of the three participation criteria: organising a week of activities implementing at least one permanent measure that contributes to sustainable mobility and scheduling reserving one or several different areas for pedestrians The activities are suitable for all kinds of audiences Galdakao will be organising a special second-hand bicycle and sustainable mobility market the 24 September and municipalities such as Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz will be holding bicycle rides that all citizens may join Durango Town Hall will be awarding the Biziklearte prize a contest to carry out an artistic intervention under the European Mobility Week 2015 to raise awareness on issues regarding sustainable mobility In regards to implementing permanent measures to contribute to sustainable mobility Ermua has installed lifts on the street to make elevated areas in the municipality better accessible and Ordizia has created a new bus stop in the Altamira quarter the furthest quarter from the municipality's urban hub Getxo and Vitoria-Gasteiz are joining the "Car-Free Day" shutting down some of their streets to traffic to celebrate the EMW 2016 These municipalities are golden participants since they are carrying out actions that fall under all three of the criteria This means that they are eligible for the European Mobility Week Award with the European Commissioner for Transport.