Spain’s daily deaths dip below 400, but statistics are questioned

Coronavirus has infected more than 200,000 people in Spain, although the spread of the disease is slowing, officials said on Monday, as the Supreme Court ordered the government to guarantee that medical workers receive adequate protective equipment.

With 200,210 recorded infections, Spain is second only to the United States in terms of confirmed cases, according to Reuters data. The cumulative death toll from the virus rose to 20,852 after 399 fatalities were recorded in the previous 24 hours, the lowest daily count in nearly a month.

Health Emergency Chief Fernando Simon told a news conference that the rate of new infections continues to fall – despite an increase in testing, suggesting the overall prevalence of the disease could be lower than expected in the population.

“Fortunately occurrence is falling a lot, even more than we had thought,” he said.

In the northern Basque region, an early hub of the outbreak, ambulance worker Marisa Arguello de Paula said she had noticed that her patients appeared generally calmer as the situation improved.

“You tell them things are going better, that hospitals aren’t so overloaded, and even though they’re on their own, they come more quietly,” she said.

In response to a complaint brought by medical unions, Spain’s Supreme Court ordered the Health Ministry to take all measures within its power to ensure health workers receive adequate protective equipment.

Medical professionals, who account for around 15.5 percent of the country’s coronavirus cases, had said that they were unable to access vital supplies like masks, gloves and surgical scrubs.

Missing statistics?

Fears continue that the real death toll may be far worse than has been announced by the government. As in many countries, including the United Kingdom, the latest statistics revealed daily only count those who had died in hospital. Analysts say many thousands more may have died in nursing facilities for the elderly, or at home.

The government’s figures also fail to count those who have died but were never tested for coronavirus.

Coronavirus response leader Simon has acknowledged that the “real number of deaths is hard to know”.

Sometimes families burying their dead are not even certain what their loved ones died of. In a nursing home near Barcelona, an 85-year-old woman died on April 8 of “possible” COVID-19 – the disease caused by the virus – said her daughter Amparo, citing a doctor’s death certificate.

Amparo, 56, who declined to give her last name, said her mother was not tested. She accused political leaders of not protecting citizens and dismissed the official tally as useless.

“Additional people have died because [politicians] have not made sufficient testing possible so that we can know the reality,” she said. “We have left them to die alone.”

Spain’s central government has previously defended its criteria for its published figures as following World Health Organization guidelines. Suspected deaths should be analysed at a later stage, the government says.

A Reuters calculation based on official data from March 1 to April 10 indicates the coronavirus death toll could be several thousand higher, or as much as 49 percent above the government’s tally.

Between those dates, Spain reported 16,353 coronavirus deaths. But according to the National Epidemiology Centre, as of Monday there were 22,487 more deaths than normal for the time of year over the exact same period.

A large part of the 6,134 difference is likely related to COVID-19, said Pedro Gullon, a Spanish Epidemiology Society board member. But it had to be carefully interpreted because it could also include non-coronavirus deaths of people who did not attend hospitals, he said.

A justice ministry spokesman said it was “ridiculous” to say that the real number of coronavirus deaths could be concealed.

Economic woes

Spain’s central bank said the country’s strict lockdown, imposed to help rein in its infection rate, had provoked economic disruption of “considerable severity”.

It forecast the economy would shrink somewhere between 6.8 percent and 12.4 percent this year depending on the duration of the lockdown.

Still, it said it expected an upturn in the second half of the year, leading to a “remarkable recovery” in 2021, for which it projected growth of 5.5 percent to 8.5 percent as economic activity rebounds.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday he would seek parliamentary approval to extend the lockdown by two weeks to May 9, but will ease some of the restrictions.

After meeting with opposition leader Pablo Casado, he agreed to set up a cross-party parliamentary commission to address the social and economic damage wrought by the outbreak.

Dubbed the reconstruction committee, it will feature members of the main political parties as well as union leaders and public health experts.

The government is considering allowing limited outings for children and for people to practise non-contact sports like jogging or cycling, health chief Simon said on Monday.

However, he added that children would be unable to play freely with their neighbours again for quite some time.