Spain coronavirus death toll reaches 4,000

Parliament extends lockdown until at least early April

Spain‘s death toll from the coronavirus epidemic has risen to over 4,000.

Some 655 fatalities were recorded over the past 24 hours – down from over 700 on Wednesday, the health ministry reported on Tuesday.

The overall number of Covid-19 cases soared to 56,188 from 47,610, as the number of reported deaths reached 4,089.

Spain extended its lockdown on Thursday until at least 12 April.

Parliament voted in the early hours of Thursday to extend emergency measures, including the state of lockdown that has seen people confined to their homes except for essential trips for food, medicine and work.

“It is not easy to extend the state of emergency,” Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said in parliament. “I am convinced the only efficient option against the virus is social isolation.”

The largest opposition party, the conservative People’s Party, supported the measure. However, its leader, Pablo Casado, chastised Mr Sanchez for what he described as a late and inadequate response to the crisis.

Mr Casado blasted the decision not to cancel the International Women’s Day marches on 8 March, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the streets, and criticised the government’s failure to provide medical professionals with vital equipment.

“Governments don’t send their soldiers to the front without helmets, flak jackets and ammunition. But our health workers don’t have any protection,” Mr Casado told parliament.

Nursing homes, whose elderly residents are highly vulnerable to the disease, have been particularly hard hit.

An analysis by radio network Cadena Ser found at least 397 residents of such homes had died from coronavirus, more than 10 per cent of the country’s death toll.

In Madrid, Spain’s worst affected region, hearses continued to arrive at the city’s ice rink, which was converted into a makeshift morgue after authorities said existing facilities lacked resources.