Daily coronavirus deaths in Spain lowest in a month
Madrid, Apr 24 (efe-epa).- The number of daily coronavirus deaths in Spain dropped to 367 on Friday, the lowest figure in a month.
Fatalities over the last 24 hours brought the total in the country, one of the worst-affected in the world, to 22,524, Spain’s health ministry reported.
There was also a decline in the number of new infections detected with 2,796 new cases putting the country past the peak of its outbreak.
It was the first time that the number of recoveries was higher than fresh infections, with 3,105 people discharged from hospital, bringing the total to 92,355.
The health ministry reported on the total number of cases detected by PCR tests, the most reliable way of monitoring the disease, for the first time on Friday.
A total of 202,990 people have tested positive by PCR and another 16,774 positives were detected by antibody tests.
Fernando Simón, director of the Health Ministry’s Emergency Coordination Center, said during a daily press conference on Friday that the declining rates were “good news”.
He highlighted the fact that the return of non-essential workers to their posts around two weeks ago had not led to any significant increase in infections.
“It is the first day that we can say there were more recoveries than new infections. This is the best figure recorded in weeks,” he added.
The number of patients in intensive care units increased by 1.8 per cent and the number of people in hospital by 1.3 per cent in the past 24 hours.
Spain has been in a strict lockdown since 15 March, with some of the harshest lockdown measures in the world.
Residents are only allowed to leave their homes to buy food and medicine or to travel to their place of employment if they cannot work from home.
Simón said the restrictions have brought the number of new cases down, and pointed out that many of the people diagnosed in the last 24 hours would have been infected days ago.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said this week that the quarantine will begin to be eased in mid-May.
The Spanish government announced earlier this week that from Monday children under 14 will be allowed to go out for walks in the first move to relax the confinement. EFE-EPA
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