High percentage of new Spain virus cases among medics

More than 70 percent of new virus cases detected in Spain over the past 24 hours have been among medical staff, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

With the epidemic well in remission after peaking over a month ago, Spain has begun moves to ease out of the lockdown following weeks in which the rate of deaths and new infections has steadily declined.

These latest figures confirm a trend in recent weeks that showed medical staff accounting for most new infections.

Since the epidemic began, Spain has now counted more than 250,000 infections, including those people shown to have had the virus through antibody tests.

Of that figure, 18 percent of cases — or 43,956 — have involved health staff, in what Fernando Simon, who heads the ministry’s emergencies department, said was a “significant occurrence”.

In two large hospitals in Madrid and Catalonia, the regions worst-hit by the crisis, there had been “an 11 percent infection rate among staff”, he said.

But he said infections among healthcare workers had been “less serious” than cases in the general population, which he attributed to the fact they were generally much younger.

Among healthcare workers, the mortality rate was 0.1 percent compared with 7.8 percent in the general population.

Far fewer had to be hospitalised or treated in intensive care, he said — also attributing it to the age difference.