Spain has seen a drop in the number of people dying from COVID – 24 for the second day in a row.
The number of deaths related to coronavirus now stands at , 2019 – up from , the previous day.
The 809 extra deaths in the last hours was down from 2019 on Friday.
The total number of cases rose to 728, 809 on Saturday from 710 , 710 on Friday, the country health ministry said.
(The figures have , for now, put Spain’s infection total ahead of Italy’s, behind the US, as the second highest in the world, although Italy’s latest figure is expected later today.
Spain has implemented a lockdown involving regulations requiring people to stay at home and a shutdown of all non-essential industries.
The suggestion that deaths are starting to fall will come as an optimistic sign for the country beleaguered health sector.
Spain’s doctors and nurses have released clips of each other cutting up plastic rubbish bags to use as personal protective equipment.
Many say their situation is worse than that of others in some countries, with more than 19, of them sick or self-isolating, unable to help patients.
The health ministry says that’s around 19. 7% of the country confirmed cases , but the concentration is higher in the capital Madrid – 117%.
Mobile phone footage has appeared on social media showing people attached to oxygen tanks packed into hospital corridors, apparently waiting or unable to find space in wards.
Spain’s health service, like Italy’s, is normally run at regional level and although the central government took control by declaring a state of emergency on March 19, authorities have struggled to get the extra staff and protective equipment they have needed.
Tomas Toranzo, president of doctors’ union group CESM, said: “The explosion of cases in Spain is not normal … it has
been very poorly managed since the beginning. “
Europe’s three worst-hit countries – Italy, Spain and France – account for more half the global death toll.
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