Spain not only left the Covid-19 'high risk' zone, in which it had been since 2 July, on Thursday (9 September) but for the first time since the end of June it registered fewer than 5,000 daily coronavirus infections.

The 4,743 reported infections were a substantial reduction compared to the 5,618 of the previous day.

The country's cumulative incidence rate at 14 days dropped by 10 in 24 hours to stand at 140.43 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, well below the threshold of 150 that marks the country’s entry into the 'medium risk' zone.

The seven-day rate plummeted to 52.24, much lower than half of the 14-day rate, which suggests that the virus will continue to decline, at least in the coming days.

Positivity (the percentage of positive tests out of the total number of tests performed), the other indicator that anticipates trends, also fell from 6.31 to 6.17 per cent.

The number of deaths, after weeks of continuous growth, is beginning to decline, more than a month after Spain hit the peak of the fifth wave in early August. The Ministry of Health added 71 new fatalities to its statistics, a figure that had not been seen since Friday, 13 August, before the 'boom' of summer infections began to be reflected in morgues and funeral homes.

The pressure on intensive care units continues to decrease slightly with 13.73 per cent of the beds occupied by Covid patients compared to 14.36 per cent on Wednesday and that of the occupation of general hospital beds also fell - from 4.51 to 4.31 per cent.