National
Spain has worst figures in Europe again as crisis management comes under scrutiny
.jpg "In the spotlight again. The government’s pandemic expert, Fernando Simón at a press conference this week.")
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By midweek, the country had 95 active cases per 100,000 people, compared to 24 in France, 17 in the UK, 13 in Germany and 8 in Italy
A month and a half on from controlling the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Spain was back in “critical”condition again this week, with the worst contagion data in western Europe.
According to an independent recount by press agency AFPpublished on Tuesday, Spain had an average of 4,923 cases a day over the previous seven days, more than all of France, the UK, Germany and Italy combined.
In midweek, Spain had 95 active cases per 100,000 people, compared to 24 for France, 17 for the UK, 13 for Germany and 8 for Italy.
In its fresh daily data published on Thursday afternoon this week, the Health ministry announced 2,935 Covid-19 cases proven in the previous 24 hours, with the usual mismatch in total, cumulative numbers. Of these, nearly 3,000 24-hour cases, 842 were in Madrid, 545 in the Basque Country and 418 in Aragon. This was a considerable increase on the daily figure of 1,690 on Wednesday.
There is community transmission which “is not perfectly under control” in some areas, the Health ministry’s pandemic expert Fernando Simón had recognised on Monday.
The national government is defending its work, saying that many more cases are detected as the number of tests go up. It adds that over half of the new cases are asymptomatic and that hospital admissions and death rates have dropped considerably.
AMadrid think tank claimed this week that Spain had had the worst cooperation with its private healthcare sector in Europe during the pandemic.
It said that the decision early on in the pandemic to centralise control of all heath resources on the Madrid-based Health ministry meant local private centres weren’t able to respond efficiently and the sector has been harmed.
