Coronavirus: Spain and France reach 1m cases as Europe intensifies measures against COVID-19

A medical team member is disinfected before leaving the COVID-19 ward at the Severo Ochoa hospital in Leganes, outskirts of Madrid, Spain.
A medical team member is disinfected before leaving the COVID-19 ward at the Severo Ochoa hospital in Leganes, outskirts of Madrid, Spain. Copyright Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
By Euronews and AP
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Spain became the first in western Europe to surpass the milestone after the latest daily recorded COVID-19 cases brought the total to 1,005,295 so far.

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Spain became the first country in western Europe to record more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 infections, with France also now passing that milestone.

According to a tally from Johns Hopkins University, Spain counts 1,005,295 cases while France has totalled 1,000,369, the sixth and seventh highest tallies globally.

Spain's health ministry attributes 34,366 deaths to COVID-19, while in France the number is 34,075. Experts say that, as in most countries, the real numbers of infections and deaths are probably much higher because insufficient testing, asymptomatic cases and other issues impede authorities from capturing the true scale of the outbreak.

As the numbers rise, authorities in charge of health policy in Spain’s regions are tightening restrictions. They want to stem the surge that has been building in recent months while avoiding a second total lockdown of home confinements that stemmed the first wave of the virus but left the economy reeling.

The regional government of northern Aragón announced on Wednesday they have closed the city limits of Zaragoza, Huesca and Teruel. Neighbouring Navarra, which leads Spain in infections per 100,000 over a 14-day period, is preparing to become the first Spanish region to close its borders on Thursday. La Rioja will also close its regional borders on Friday.

Spain’s Health Minister Salvador Illa and regional heads of health will meet on Thursday to discuss their virus strategies and consider employing nightly curfews to target late-night partying as a source of contagion.

“I want to be very clear,” Illa said on Tuesday. “Some very hard weeks are coming.”

Russia had already reported more than one million cases, with a tally now over 1.4 million. The US continues to lead the world with over 8 million reported cases, according to the tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University which is considered a global standard for charting the progress of the pandemic.

Spain’s cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days, which is a more reliable indicator of the evolution of the virus, has decreased in recent days. It currently sits at 332 cases per 100,000, a figure that is still worrying but now lower than the Czech Republic, Belgium, Netherlands, France and Britain.

Despite the higher number of asymptomatic cases found through improved testing, the pressure is being felt in Spain’s hospitals. Over 3,900 patients have required hospitalisation over the past week, with 274 needing intensive care, the ministry said.

Almost 40 per cent of Madrid’s ICU units are occupied by COVID-19 patients.

Elsewhere, in Germany, daily cases topped 10,000 for the first time, after it reported 11,287 on Thursday.

That's a net increase of nearly 3,700 compared to the previous day, which far exceeds the previous record set last Friday at 7,830 new infections recorded by the Robert Koch Institute for Health Surveillance.

Since Friday, Italy has seen a sharp rise in cases of Covid-19, with more than 10,000 patients a day, and Lombardy, where Milan is located, is the most affected, as it was at the beginning of the pandemic in February and March.

Two Italian regions, Lombardy and Campania, are rolling out curfews to try to stem the flow of cases.

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