Coronavirus: Spain overtakes China in total death toll

Spain and Italy once again announced high numbers of fatalities on Wednesday as countries across Europe continued to battle the spread of coronavirus

Spain reported 738 new deaths in one day on Wednesday while Italy announced 683. The two countries have the highest fatality rate in the global pandemic.

The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic “threatens the whole humanity”, the United Nations director-general Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday, as Spain surpassed China in the overall number of COVID-19 deaths.

Spain has exceeded this Wednesday the figure of 3,000 deaths with coronavirus, with 3,432 deaths since the start of the outbreak and 47,610 cases , just on the day one month after the notification of the first death of a person with COVID-19 . These figures exceed the deaths reported by China , 3,274. In addition, the date becomes the second consecutive day with the most new cases registered, 7,934

Taking into account the start of the outbreak on the first day with around twenty cases reported by each country, the number of deaths in Spain is advancing at a faster rate than that of Italy , whose infections are ten days ahead. On its 23rd day of the outbreak, Spain registered 1,625 deaths more than those reported by Italy on March 15th, when the same number of contagion days was completed, 1,809.

With respect to other countries, Spain has 1,913 more deaths than China on its twenty-third day , when it counted 1,809 deaths; 2,581 more than Iran (853); 2,872 more than France (562) or 3,153 more than the United Kingdom (281).

With 3,432 deaths, 27.37% more than Tuesday (738 new in a single day), Spain has also surpassed China in number of deaths 38 days before the Asian country took to reach a similar figure and four days before what Italy did . Specifically, Spain has registered 160 more deaths this Wednesday than China , which has so far 3,274 deaths.

The first cases registered in China by the WHO and Johns Hopkins University occurred 61 days ago, on January 22, 2020, and the contagion began to spread in Spain on March 28, despite the existence of records of previous cases.

Record of infections in 24 hours
On the other hand, Spain has also registered the greatest increase in new cases since the start of the outbreak : 7,937 new infections, representing a growth of 20% in 24 hours. These figures, which represented an increase of 19.9% ​​from Monday to Tuesday, represent the highest percentage growth since March 21, when Spain reached 24,926 infections and recorded a 24.75% daily growth.

Europe at a glance.

France is withdrawing troops from Iraq due to the pandemic.

France has around 200 military personnel working in Iraq, mostly training local armed forces or in the coalition’s Baghdad headquarters.

“In coordination with the Iraqi government, the coalition has decided to adjust its deployments in Iraq and provisionally suspend training activities,” it said in a statement.

The UK has already announced it will withdraw some of its troops, as have the Czech Republic.

India on Tuesday started implementing the world’s biggest lockdown of 1.3 billion people, following the example of a number of countries, especially in Europe, which remains the global coronavirus hotspot.

Finland, which has 880 confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus and has reported three deaths, announced on Wednesday the lockdown of the capital Helsinki and its region, starting Friday until 19 April.

France announced a total of 25,233 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday as its death toll reached 1,331, with 231 new deaths in one day.

The country has introduced legislation to implement a “war economy” amid the pandemic and as the country has been under lockdown for a week.

The Moody’s credit rating agency said on Wednesday it is forecasting an economic recession for all G20 countries in 2020 due to the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

The UK on Wednesday confirmed the death of the deputy to the British ambassador to Hungary, Steven Dick, 37, who died of COVID-19.

Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday that over 400,000 people answered a call to volunteer for the NHS health service in one day.

Testing controversy

It was front page headline in the mainstream media “Prince Charles tested positive for coronavirus, displaying mild symptoms “but otherwise remains in good health”. He and the Duchess of Cornwall, who tested negative, are self-isolating on the Balmoral Estate.”

But questions were asked how the rich famous and elite get tested but frontline workers miss out.

How could Prince Charles and others like the actor Idris Elba get tested for coronavirus in the U.K. even if he didn’t have symptoms, while some health care workers can’t?

The fact is the UK have tested 90,436 overall

Mass home testing is to be made available ‘within days’, Public Health England has claimed. The test, which involves pricking the finger to produce a drop of blood, which is then analysed by the device, will first be validated in Oxford to ensure it works as well as scientists hope.

That will happen this week and it should then be available to test healthcare workers and also the general public. But at the PM’s press conference this afternoon Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, played down the idea that millions of the tests would be available on the internet next week.

As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus has skyrocketed in Europe, access to testing has sparked tensions among ordinary citizens and disagreement among national and international health officials.

At issue is that most European countries prioritize testing only for the most severe cases and tend to focus on those admitted to hospital, so medical staff know how to treat them and ensure the infection doesn’t spread. But the World Health Organization (WHO) still advises that countries test as widely as possible, even if the virus has spread in the community.

Some health experts, however, think the window for widespread testing to make a difference has closed.

“We will not get that disease out of the world anymore,” said Mika Salminen, the director of health at the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), at a government briefing on Thursday, Helsingin Sanomat reported.

TESTING ACROSS EUROPE

Coronavirus testing in the EU27 and U.K.
The U.K. have tested the most people falling behind Germany and Italy

More than 113,000 of the 454,000 people diagnosed with the disease have recovered, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. About 20,500 people worldwide have died from COVID

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