Spain announces 812 virus deaths in 24 hours, slight drop

by Daniel Silva

Spain confirmed another 812 deaths in 24 hours from the coronavirus on Monday, a slight decline on the previous day’s toll, bringing the total number of deaths to 7,340.

The country, which has the world’s second most deadly outbreak after Italy, recorded 838 deaths from the pandemic on Sunday, its third straight daily record for coronavirus deaths.

The percentage increase in the number of deaths on Monday over the previous day was 12.4 percent, less than half the increase of 27 percent recorded on Wednesday.

The growth in the number of new confirmed cases also slowed, posting a one-day rise of 8.0 percent to 85,195, according to the health ministry, compared to a 20-percent rise on Wednesday.

However, Spain has now joined the United States and Italy in having more cases than China, where the virus first appeared in December and which had confirmed 81,439 cases as of Sunday evening.

Spain’s healthcare system is struggling to cope with the surge of seriously ill patients all at once, with hotels and conference centres being used as temporary clinics and Madrid’s largest ice ink turned into a provisional morgue.

“While the isolation measures have reduced the pressure on intensive care units, in the coming weeks it will be significant,” said Maria Jose Sierra of the health ministry’s emergencies centre in reference to the lockdown measures the country has imposed.

The medical director of Barcelona’s Hospital Clinic, Antoni Castells, said his staff would soon have to start to “rationalise the resources it uses based on the possibility that a patient will survive.”

“The situation gets more complicated each day,” he added in an interview with Spanish public radio RNE.

The outbreak is also taking its toll on healthcare personnel, who complain of a lack of masks and other protective material.

As of Monday, over 12,200 medical staff were infected, up from around 9,500 on Friday, according to the health ministry. (AFP)