Daily coronavirus deaths in Spain fall to 48, the lowest figure since mid-March

The Spanish Health Ministry reported on Saturday that there had been 48 registered deaths related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the lowest number seen since the middle of March, at the outset of the epidemic. New infections detected via the more reliable PCR tests came in at 361 on Saturday. On Friday, the number of daily fatalities was 56, with 446 new infections.

There have been a total of 28,678 Covid-19 related deaths in Spain since the epidemic began, with 235,290 registered infections.

For the last week now, the number of daily coronavirus-related deaths has come in under 100, with all indicators on the decline.

Nine regions reported detecting fewer than 10 cases in the last few days

The figures, however, are pending revisions from the Catalonia region, which on Friday added more than 600 coronavirus-related fatalities to its historical series. The Catalan health authorities were on Saturday still revising their figures.

With regard to new active infections, as detected via PCR tests, it should be pointed out that Madrid assigns these to the date when the test was taken once the result comes back positive. The Madrid region is still having problems in getting results back in the 48 hours stipulated by the central Health Ministry, meaning that the figure from its daily report – 68 on Saturday, of the total of 361 – does not account for all cases detected, which are actually 185.

There is a similar situation in Catalonia, which reported 92 cases on Saturday, but has added another 59 to previous days.

That said, there were nine regions on Saturday that reported detecting fewer than 10 cases in the last days. On Friday, Fernando Simón, the director of the Health Ministry’s Coordination Center for Health Alerts, said that there is a possibility that the virus will become “undetectable” if care is taken during the deescalation process and there is no new outbreak. As such, Simón canceled the until-now-daily government press conference at the weekend to comment on the coronavirus crisis and the data.

With regard to the two other indicators, they are also at record lows. New hospitalizations came in at 125 on Saturday, compared to 123 the day before. Four regions, the Canary Islands, Catalonia, Valencia and La Rioja reported no cases. There were just 13 new admissions to intensive care, compared to 20 on Friday.

Spain is currently in the process of deescalating its coronavirus confinement measures, with phase changes set to be implemented on Monday across the country.

English version by Simon Hunter.