Spain adds 9,437 cases Tuesday as almost 10% of hospital beds in Spain dedicated to COVID-19

SPAIN has officially exceeded 600,000 COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic after registering 9,437 new cases on Tuesday.

With 3,022 of those being the past 24 hours, it brings the total official count to 603,167.

Catalunya was unable to hand over its data today due to a ‘technical problem.’

Madrid continues to be the worst hit region, according to the national Health Ministry, clocking 1,207 cases in the past 24 hours, followed by Navarra with 302 and the Basque Country with 270.

Meanwhile 156 people have died from the virus between Monday and Tuesday, bringing the total death toll in Spain to 30,004.

This figure does not include deaths in care homes or deaths in people who showed symptoms of COVID-19 but did not have a confirmatory PCR test.

More important are the hospital figures, but pressure there is beginning to mount, more in certain regions than others.

Some 2,138 COVID-19 sufferers were sent to hospital in the past week, with Madrid accounting for 388 of them.

Andalucia, the most populous region, is close behind having clocked 383, followed by Castilla y Leon with 207 new hospitalisations in the past week.

The health ministry has also revealed that 1,035 patients have been discharged in the past 24 hours.

Across Spain, currently 8.5% of hospital beds are taken up by coronavirus patients, but this varies widely when broken down regionally.

Madrid, for example, has 21% of its hospital beds dedicated to coronavirus, followed by Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Castilla La Mancha and the Basque Country, all on 12%, and La Rioja on 11%.

The figures are still far off from what was seen in March, meanwhile the number of PCR tests being carried out is far higher while the growth in the number of deaths and hospitalisations is slower.

However the number of beds being occupied by COVID-19 in Spain has all but doubled in a month, rising from 4.3% to 8.5%