Laurence Dollimore
SPAIN has recorded its lowest COVID-19 death toll in almost eight weeks.
Some 143 people lost their lives from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, down from the 179 registered on Saturday.
It is the lowest figure since March 18, just four days after the state of alarm and lockdown were announced.
Madrid and Catalunya account for 49% of the new deaths, with 46 and 21 people losing their lives in the past 24 hours respectively.
The Canaries and Cantabria recorded no new deaths while in seven other communities there were just one or two.
Still, the total death toll in Spain is now a morbid 26,621, a figure only surpassed by the US, UK and Italy.
Meanwhile, a total of 621 new infections were recorded between Saturday and Sunday (slightly up from the 604 reported yesterday).
It is the seventh day this month that that figure has remained below the 1,000 mark.
Four regions are accounting for 65% of the new cases, with all of them remaining in Phase 0 of the deescalation plan from Monday (bar some areas in Catalunya).
They are Catalunya (with 151 new infections), Castilla y Leon (110), Madrid (73) and Castilla-La Mancha (65).
But health experts are pleased with the numbers today given that it is two weeks since children were permitted outdoor exercise.
It means there has not been a significant resurgence of the disease since the first easing of lockdown restrictions began.
The growth rate of new cases remains stable at 0.28%. Eight weeks ago that figure stood at 20%.
It seems that people are generally adhering to the lockdown rules, with 42% of the new coronavirus cases actually coming from health professionals.
While health workers are naturally more at risk, it suggests a shortage of quality personal protective equipment (PPE) may be putting them at an extra risk.
It comes after several incidents of front line workers discovering their PPE items were ‘ineffective’ or ‘fake’ after they had been put into use.
Out of today’s 621 new cases, 265 are health professionals. In fact the number of infected health staff has tripled since the start of April, reaching 48,046 today – or 21.4% of the 224,390 total.
On a positive note, thousands continue to recover each day, with today’s figure reading 2,214 – some 3.5 times the number of new infections.
To date, some 136,166 people have overcome coronavirus in Spain.
There have also been just 36 patients admitted into ICU in the past 24 hours. In 10 regions that number is zero.
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