Spain came close to clocking half a million coronavirus cases yesterday after authorities registered 4,503 new infections, bringing the total to 498,989 – the most in Western Europe.
The coronavirus causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
A new wave of contagion has been less deadly than early in the pandemic, however, and infections appear to have slowed from a daily peak of more than 10,000 a week ago.
The tally could be revised, as Spain updates its statistics retroactively.
The death rate remains well below the March-April peak when fatalities routinely exceeded 800 per day.
The health ministry reported 19 deaths yesterday, bringing the total up to 29,148.
With schools due to restart next week and many adults returning to work, the latest surge in coronavirus cases has sparked concern and some confusion.
“In Madrid everybody wears a face mask, we maintain social distance, there are no night clubs, so I don’t know what the problem is,” teacher Maribel Cimas told Reuters from behind a zebra-patterned mask. “What are we doing worse than the rest of Europe?”
The Madrid region, which accounts for just below a third of the 101,962 cases diagnosed in the past two weeks, announced that it would impose tighter restrictions from Monday, extending a national 10-person limit on public gatherings to cover private parties as well.
“The situation is stable and controlled, but that doesn’t mean we’re not concerned,” regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero told a news conference.
At a national level, Health Minister Salvador Illa urged Spaniards to respect rules to curb transmission and announced that Spain would launch a nationwide antibody study in autumn to determine the prevalence of the virus among the population.
A previous study that concluded in July showed around 5% of Spaniards had been exposed to the virus, and, despite the recent peaks, total confirmed cases are still not far off that mark.
Meanwhile, France recorded almost 9,000 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, setting a record since the beginning of the pandemic, while more people were also hospitalised as a result of the disease.
Health authorities said in a statement that there had been 8,975 new confirmed cases, almost 1,500 higher than the previous March 31 daily peak of 7,578, when France was in one of Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns.
The surge in parts of France, which is partially due to increased testing, has meant a dozen schools have been forced to close just days into the new academic year.
The seven-day moving average of new infections, which smoothes out reporting irregularities, stood at an eighth consecutive record of 6,011, versus a low of 272 on May 27 – two weeks after authorities lifted the two-month-long lockdown.
The cumulative number of cases now totals 309,156.
As the rise in infections has mainly affected young people, who are less likely to develop complications, there has so far been less strain on French hospitals, which were almost overwhelmed at the end of March this year.
But after falling steadily for months after an April 14 peak of 32,292, the number of people hospitalised was up by 28 on Friday to 4,671, rising for a sixth day in a row.
Among those, the number of people in intensive care units (ICUs) for Covid-19 rose by 9 to 473, far below the April 8 record of 7,148, but increasing for an eighth consecutive day.
The number of people in France reported to have died from Covid-19 was 30,686, down by 20 compared to 24 hours earlier as authorities revised the number of deaths in nursing homes.