Spain tops China in cases; 100k infected in Italy

BEIJING/MADRID:SPAIN has become the third country to surpass China in coronavirus infections after the United States and Italy, even the number of cases in Italy crossed 100,000 on Monday.

With a population of 47 million, Spain’s tally of infections reached 85,195 on Monday, a rise of 8% from a previous day. Monday also saw 812 fatalities to 7,300 since the outbreak started in earnest in early March, Spain’s Health Ministry said.

In Madrid, where nearly half of the total deaths have been recorded, flags were hoisted at half-mast as authorities declared the official mourning, with a minute of silence expected at noon time.

Authorities also step up the country’s half-a-month lockdown on Monday, beginning with a new two-week period of “hibernation,” as described by a Spanish Cabinet member in order to alleviate the pressure of the illness in the country’s health system.

Only workers in hospitals, pharmacies, the food supply chain and other essential industries are required to work until the end of Easter, in mid-april, while the rest have been asked to scale back operations to weekend-level.

At least six of Spain’s 17 regions are at their limit of ICU beds and three more were close to it, authorities said, while frantic construction of field hospitals continues.

Meanwhile, the number of new cases rose by 4,050, the lowest amount since March 17, hitting a total 101,739 from a previous 97,689. Some 5,217 cases were recorded on Sunday and 5,974 on Saturday.

The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy climbed by 812 to 11,591, the Civil Protection Agency said on Monday, reversing two days of declines in the daily rate.

Italy has registered more deaths than anywhere else in the world and accounts for more than a third of all global fatalities from the virus.

Italy’s largest daily toll from the five-week-old epidemic was registered on Friday, when 919 people died. There were 889 deaths on Saturday and 756 on Sunday.

In China, the worst-hit Hubei province reported four deaths until early on Monday, pushing the overall death toll to 3,304.

The country’s national health commission (NHC) said on Monday that 31 new confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland were reported on Sunday, of which 30 were imported, taking their total number to 723. The single new domestic case was reported in Gansu province in northwest China. The overall confirmed cases on the mainland reached 81,470 by the end of Sunday.

Beijing’s focus now is on controlling cases from abroad. China needs to shore up its preventive measures against the imported cases of the coronavirus disease, NHC spokesperson Mi Feng said on Monday.