Madrid: Spain overtook China in confirmed coronavirus infections Monday as the pandemic stretched scores of Spanish hospitals to their breaking point.
As confirmed virus deaths in New York surpassed 1,000, President Donald Trump extended stay-at-home recommendations for a month in an abrupt turnaround.
With a population of only 47 million people to China’s 1.4 billion, Spain’s tally of infections reached 85,195, an eight per cent rise from the previous day but down from earlier increases that had rocketed up to 20 per cent. Spain also reported 812 new deaths, raising its overall confirmed death toll to 7,340.
Experts say those figures — and ones in every other country – are much lower than the actual impact of the pandemic, due to limited testing, counting irregularities and mild cases that have been missed.
Spain and Italy make up more than half the world’s death toll of over 34,800 people from the virus that has upended the lives of billions and devastated world economies. Italy has by far the most reported virus deaths, at nearly 11,000.
At least six of Spain’s 17 regions were at their limit of ICU beds and three more were close to it, authorities said Monday. Crews of workers were frantically building more field hospitals.
Despite the declining infection rate, Spanish health official Dr Maria José Sierra said there’s no end to the stay-at-home restrictions yet in sight.
Nearly 15 per cent of all those infected in Spain, almost 13,000 people, are health care workers, hurting hospitals’ efforts to help the tsunami of people gasping for breath.
In a situation unimaginable only a month ago, Italian officials were cheered when they reported only 756 deaths in one day. Italy has 97,689 confirmed infections but said the number of positive cases in the last day increased just 5.4 per cent and the number of deaths have dropped about 10 per cent a day since Friday.
In a stark reversal of his previous stance, Trump extended federal guidelines recommending that Americans stay home for another 30 days until the end of April to slow the spread of the virus.
The turnabout came after Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said up to 2,00,000 Americans could die and millions become infected if lockdowns and social distancing did not continue.
The US now has more than 143,000 infections and 2,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, while around the world more than 7,35,000 people are infected.
Agencies