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| Spain’s count of coronavirus deaths makes it the world’s hardest-hit country behind Italy | Spain’s count of coronavirus deaths makes it the world’s hardest-hit country behind Italy |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| MADRID — The number of coronavirus deaths in Spain surpassed 3,400 on Wednesday, as health authorities struggled to cope with what has emerged as the worst outbreak in the world after Italy. | MADRID — The number of coronavirus deaths in Spain surpassed 3,400 on Wednesday, as health authorities struggled to cope with what has emerged as the worst outbreak in the world after Italy. |
| The overnight increase of 738 deaths, taking the total death toll to 3,434, was the biggest increase the country has reported so far. A total of 47,610 people have tested positive, according to Spain’s ministry of health. | The overnight increase of 738 deaths, taking the total death toll to 3,434, was the biggest increase the country has reported so far. A total of 47,610 people have tested positive, according to Spain’s ministry of health. |
| The rise meant Spain leapfrogged ahead of the official death tally in China, where the global pandemic began but the rate of reported new infections has tapered off. There have been 3,285 deaths in China, according to Johns Hopkins data. Italy remains the world’s worst-hit country, with more than 6,800 dead. | |
| Coronavirus live updates | Coronavirus live updates |
| The picture in Spain is grim. Soldiers have discovered dead bodies abandoned in nursing homes. The capital, Madrid, has turned an ice-skating rink into a morgue. Spanish television has broadcast images of sickened patients sleeping in hospital corridors, while staff complain that medical supplies are so low they’ve been forced to use plastic garbage bags as protection instead of gowns. | |
| Among those who have been hospitalized is Spain’s deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo. | |
| Health experts expect the situation to get worse before it gets better, warning that Spanish hospitals could reach their capacity for new intensive-care patients as early as this week. | |
| Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access. | Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access. |
| Some doctors say hospitals are already being forced to make heart-wrenching decisions about whom to treat with limited supplies of ventilators. | |
| “There are some hospitals which have already collapsed,” said Oriol Mitja, an infectious disease specialist at Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol in Barcelona. “They have to make a decision when to admit a patient to intensive care or not, and the criteria is mainly by age, so some elderly people are not prioritized.” | |
| He said his team expects intensive care beds to be completely filled by the end of the week. | |
| The intensity of the outbreak in Spain drives home the notion that Italy is no outlier, epidemiologists say. Across Europe, hundreds of millions of people face severe restrictions on their daily lives, as authorities attempt to battle community transmission. But some countries, including Spain, have been criticized for being too slow to intervene and to mandate social distancing. | |
| Italy’s coronavirus deaths are staggering. They may be more preview than anomaly. | Italy’s coronavirus deaths are staggering. They may be more preview than anomaly. |
| Spanish authorities imposed restrictions on trips outside the home a little under two weeks ago. While city streets are largely deserted and many companies have asked employees to work from home, that is not mandated, and commuter trains are still running, albeit at 50 percent of their services. | Spanish authorities imposed restrictions on trips outside the home a little under two weeks ago. While city streets are largely deserted and many companies have asked employees to work from home, that is not mandated, and commuter trains are still running, albeit at 50 percent of their services. |
| “What has happened in Europe, not just Spain, is we underestimated this virus,” said Mitja, who has been pushing for a further tightening of the restrictions on movement. | |
| Health authorities have been scrambling to add capacity. Earlier this week, the military set up a provisional hospital with 1,300 beds at a Madrid convention center in just 24 hours. | Health authorities have been scrambling to add capacity. Earlier this week, the military set up a provisional hospital with 1,300 beds at a Madrid convention center in just 24 hours. |
| Spain has about 6,000 critical-care beds, of which 3,166 are being used to treat coronavirus patients, according to Spanish authorities. Hospitals have delayed nonessential surgeries in an effort to free up beds, but it remains unclear how many beds remain available. | |
| Fernando Simon, who heads Spain’s coordinated emergency health response, said it was difficult to determine where Spain is on the coronavirus curve based on current data, but that he expected the peak of new cases was “very close.” | Fernando Simon, who heads Spain’s coordinated emergency health response, said it was difficult to determine where Spain is on the coronavirus curve based on current data, but that he expected the peak of new cases was “very close.” |
| Still, he told health-care professionals to brace themselves, as there is a delay before that peak is reflected in the number of patients experiencing severe respiratory distress hospitals. “We are in the tough week,” Simon said. | |
| As coronavirus surges, a frantic Europe scrambles for hospital beds, ventilators, supplies | |
| The Spanish government has faced particular criticism for failing to ban mass events as the virus took hold, in particular the decision to press ahead with a 120,000-person women’s march in Madrid on March 8. High-profile attendees, including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, have since tested positive. | |
| “There were thousands of woman,” said Mitja. “That could have been the trigger and the reason why Madrid is the No. 1 place affected. We did not work quick enough with control strategies.” | |
| Some experts have also pointed to Spain’s particularly social culture and love of late-night gatherings as factors that may have helped the disease take hold. | |
| Lockdown measures in Spain have reduced transmission rates, Mitja said, but they remain high enough to sustain the virus, with each infected person passing the virus on to an average of 1.7 people. | |
| Covid-19, the disease that develops from novel coronavirus, is particularly dangerous for the elderly and has swept through the country’s nursing homes. The military took control of all residential facilities earlier this week, making macabre discoveries when they did so. In a television interview, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said soldiers had found elderly residents abandoned by staff and left “dead in their beds.” | Covid-19, the disease that develops from novel coronavirus, is particularly dangerous for the elderly and has swept through the country’s nursing homes. The military took control of all residential facilities earlier this week, making macabre discoveries when they did so. In a television interview, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said soldiers had found elderly residents abandoned by staff and left “dead in their beds.” |
| “We are going to be extremely firm with this kind of negligence,” she said. | “We are going to be extremely firm with this kind of negligence,” she said. |
| But staff have complained they do not have the proper protection to tend to the sick or move bodies. More than 22 people died at the Santa Hortensia nursing in Madrid, according to Spanish media reports. | But staff have complained they do not have the proper protection to tend to the sick or move bodies. More than 22 people died at the Santa Hortensia nursing in Madrid, according to Spanish media reports. |
| The availability of such supplies has been a persistent complaint during the outbreak. | |
| “This is an overwhelmed system,” said Angela Hernández Puente, deputy secretary general of the Madrid doctor’s union Amyts. She said frontline medical workers had been “overworked and overextended for weeks now.” | |
| “They are angry,” she added. She said that two family physicians had died after contracting coronavirus, and she expected more deaths of medical workers to follow. | |
| A group of national medical associations sent an open letter to Spanish authorities on Tuesday decrying the lack of protective equipment. | |
| “We health workers find ourselves in a situation of complete insecurity and lack of protection while conducting our duties of assistance and prevention of public health, given the inadequate and very risky health conditions, and the lack of protective material and equipment supplies necessary to guarantee the precise safety of ourselves, as well as the patients,” they wrote. | “We health workers find ourselves in a situation of complete insecurity and lack of protection while conducting our duties of assistance and prevention of public health, given the inadequate and very risky health conditions, and the lack of protective material and equipment supplies necessary to guarantee the precise safety of ourselves, as well as the patients,” they wrote. |
| With the international medical market struggling to keep up with demand, countries in Europe have turned to China for assistance. Spain’s health minister, Santiago Illa, announced Wednesday that the country had purchased $467 million in medical supplies from China, inducing 950 ventilators, 5.5 million testing kits, 11 million gloves and more than half a billion protective face masks. | With the international medical market struggling to keep up with demand, countries in Europe have turned to China for assistance. Spain’s health minister, Santiago Illa, announced Wednesday that the country had purchased $467 million in medical supplies from China, inducing 950 ventilators, 5.5 million testing kits, 11 million gloves and more than half a billion protective face masks. |
| According to the Ministry of Health, about 14 percent of those who have tested positive are medical workers. Spaniards gather on their balconies at 8 p.m. each evening, to applaud the country’s health and security services. | According to the Ministry of Health, about 14 percent of those who have tested positive are medical workers. Spaniards gather on their balconies at 8 p.m. each evening, to applaud the country’s health and security services. |
| About 10 to 15 percent of health workers in Catalonia are reported to be sick or in isolation. At La Paz hospital in Madrid, 426 medical professionals cannot work, according to Hernández. That makes up 22 percent of the hospital’s doctor and 28 percent of nurses. | |
| She said she was surprised other countries were not acting more decisively. President Trump has said he wants to see the United States “opened up” by Easter, with the churches full. | |
| “There are countries that, even when given the clear case of what’s happening in Spain, are not learning the lessons,” she said. | |
| Morris reported from Berlin | Morris reported from Berlin |
| How countries around the world have tried to contain the coronavirus | How countries around the world have tried to contain the coronavirus |
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