Coronavirus: Spain’s total death toll surges past China’s

Spain has recorded the highest daily death toll from coronavirus anywhere in the world since the crisis with 738 in a single day.

A paramedic disinfects her hands after transporting a patient to Burgos General Hospital in northern Spain. Picture: AFP

Spain has registered 655 deaths from the coronavirus in one day after recording the highest daily toll in the world with 738 fatalities on Tuesday, as exhausted medical workers complain of critical shortages in equipment and supplies.

The country had recorded 4089 deaths from the virus by Thursday, more than China where the virus originated and killed 3281. Italy has the most deaths of any country with 7503.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide on Thursday was 487,650, with 22,030 deaths and 114,870 recoveries.

Health Minister Salvador Illa said Spain was in the worst phase of the outbreak. “It is obvious the number of deaths has increased and that it will continue to increase for a few more days as we approach the peak,” he said.

Spain’s universal healthcare system is a symbol of national pride, but the virus — which has infected more than 56,100 people — has exposed weaknesses after years of budget cuts. Emergency units in the capital, Madrid, are operating at full capacity.

Health workers report overflowing intensive care units and a lack of staff and equipment. Nearly 14 per cent of those infected — 6500 people — are health workers, and there is rising anger over the lack of protective gear.

Two GPs died late on Wednesday, one in a village near Salamanca and the other in Cordoba. A senior doctor in a hospital in the northern city of Vigo was sacked after taking to social media to criticise the lack of protective equipment for medical staff.

Doctors and nurses have spoken of a breakdown in supply and organisation. “We are waging a guerilla war. Nobody is leading or co-ordinating,” Gabriel Del Pozo, the head of a medical workers’ union, told El Mundo.

“Nobody is taking responsibility and taking command, and that is the problem.”

Nearly 27,000 people in Spain have been treated in hospital, of whom 3166 are in intensive care. In La Paz hospital in Madrid, 11 of the building’s 14 floors are dedicated to patients with the virus.

Madrid remains the worst-hit region. A doctors’ union filed a lawsuit to force the regional health authority to deliver scrubs, masks and goggles to hospitals and other health centres. And a judge ordered late on Wednesday (AEDT) that Madrid’s health service must have sufficient medical equipment within 24 hours.

Spain’s health ministry announced it had agreed a €430m ($798m) deal with China to supply medical equipment. The supplies would be delivered “on a staggered basis, every week, with the first, a major delivery, arriving at the end of this week”, Mr Illa said.

Some 650,000 test kits started to be delivered this week, with hospitals deemed a priority. Authorities have carried out mass testing of the public for coronavirus at a fairground in Madrid.

Spain has also asked NATO for emergency medical supplies, ­including 450,000 respirators, 1.5 million surgical masks and 1.5 million rapid test kits.

The army, which is disinfecting railway stations and airports and transporting dead bodies to mortuaries, said it had checked and sanitised more than 500 care homes. Earlier in the week, it said soldiers had found dead bodies in beds and ­elderly people abandoned.

A care home for the elderly in the southern town of Alcala del Valle, where 38 of 42 residents tested positive for the virus, has been evacuated. And care homes in Madrid and Catalonia are being investigated for negligence.

A judge in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands ordered a company that employs care workers to pay a €1000 fine for each day it failed to provide them with adequate protection.

The Times