Dilip Kuner
MADRID has been warned of tough times ahead by Spain’s Health Minister Salvador Illa.
New restrictions are set to be announced today in the city, which has already restricted gatherings to no more than six people and imposed a partial lockdown on 850,000 people.
Residents of boroughs designated as hot spots are not allowed to leave their area unless they have a good reason – for example to go to a medical appointment.
Yesterday the Olive Press reported that the cumulative total of coronavirus infections in Spain has now topped 700,000, with Madrid being particularly badly hit.
Illa said: “Tough weeks are coming for Madrid. We have to act with determination to bring the pandemic under control.”
The total number of cases detected by PCR since the beginning of the pandemic to 702,209, or 1.4% of the country’s population.
However the real number of infected is likely to be around 2.3 million people, or 5% of the population, according to estimates by health experts following several studies.
The total number of cases by PCR has doubled in the past 40 days, rising from 342,813 on August 14 to more than 702,000 today.
For the past week, however, the number of new cases registered daily has hovered around 10,000 after reaching almost 15,000 last Friday.
