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With the vast majority of Spain's autonomous communities - all except Catalonia and Castilla y León - having requested permission to progress from Phase 0 to the eased Phase 1 of the coronavirus deescalation plan on Monday, the Spanish ministry of health's regular daily briefing on the evolution of the coronavirus across the state has provided another moment of serious reflection: this Friday, for the third successive day, the death toll has exceeded 200 fatalities per day. In the last 24 hours, 229 people have lost their lives, 16 more than yesterday. In total there are already 26,299 deaths, according to official Spanish figures.

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Breakdown by autonomous regions 08/05/20: (1) Covid-19 cases that have been in hospital,Total and New; (2) Cases that have been in ICUs, Total and New; (3) Deaths, Total and New. 

In this eighth week of Spain's state of alarm, the lowest rates of mortality so far have been recorded - under 1% in percentage terms. In absolute numbers, the number of daily deaths fell below the threshold of two hundred last Sunday for the first time in two months. But on Wednesday and Thursday, it rose to above 200 mark again, and that has continued in the latest count.

The figures for new infections are not good either this Friday - the first day this week that, according to official data from the Spanish government, more than 1,000 new infections have been recorded. Half of those, 543 out of 1,095, were detected in Catalonia. Of those patients who have had the Covid-19 infection, 131,148 patients have already been given a medical all-clear.

 

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Covid-19 cases confirmed by PCR tests, by autonomous regions 08/05/20: (1) Total, (2) New, (3) New as % increase, (4) Total per 10,000 inhabitants in last 14 days. 

Once again, the head of the government's health emergency committee Fernando Simón called for public responsibility, noting that there are people who break the rules of distancing that have been established. "We have to be conscious that we are gambling everything if some are behaving badly," said Dr Simón.

Catalonia leads the ranking of deaths

The ministry's data makes it clear that it is in Catalonia that the situation seems most complicated, as it leads both the rankings of daily figures: deaths and new infections. One third of the fatalities reported in the whole of the Spanish state in this latest 24 hour interval have been registered in Catalan territory: 77 out of 229. The number of deaths is even higher if the calculations of the Catalan government itself are taken into account. These are calculated on broader criteria and yielded a total of 134.

Catalonia's proposal for the easing of lockdown in its territory, was, in accordance with the statistical reality, very cautious, only including the two health areas of the Tarragona province and the north-western district of Alt Pirineu-Aran as candidates to move to Phase 1. 

The Madrid region, which unlike Catalonia has asked to move to Phase 1 in its entirety next Monday, is the other part of the Spanish state with a significantly higher number of deaths compared to the other autonomous communities. The Spanish capital has the highest number of fatalities from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic: 8,552. It is true, however, that its death rate has fallen. In the last 24 hours, there were 48 deaths notified.

Castilla y León, the only region along with Catalonia which decided to wait before requesting the jump from phase 0 to 1, had 12 coronavirus deaths in the last 24 hour period.

SPAIN: Total confirmed cases by autonomous communities.

SPAIN: Daily deaths (black), daily increases in confirmed cases (blue).

Note: Official Spain statistics for both deaths and new cases only include those who have tested positively to Covid-19. Until April 26th the daily cases curve was also affected by the inclusion of cases confirmed by antibody tests. Subsequently these were excluded from daily figures and totals, which are now limited to PCR tests.