Spain surpasses two million coronavirus cases

Spain reached the milestone of 2 million positive coronavirus diagnoses, following the steady growth in cases in the past month, with a total of 42,360 new daily cases on Thursday. 

It was on October 21 that Spain hit the million barrier - making it the first country in western Europe to do so.

This was eight months after the first case of the virus was detected in Catalonia and the Iberian peninsula on February 25. It took two and a half months to reach the second million. 

The country, with 2,024,904 documented cases, now joins France, the United Kingdom and Italy, as the other European countries who have surpassed two million infections.

Another 245 people have died from the virus bringing the death toll to 51,675, making Spain the country with the tenth highest number of deaths from the pandemic.

However, the preliminary results of the ENE-Covid-19 seroprevalence study implies that around 4.7 million Spaniards might have actually already been infected by the virus as presented last December by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. 

In terms of cases, Catalonia holds the second-highest number of positives in the state, with 19% of all Covid-19 diagnoses coming from the area. 

Many restrictions remain in place, with the Catalan government putting in force a municipal lockdown during the week on January 7, 2021, as well as the shutting of retail shops at the weekend.

The beginning of the end

On December 27, the Spanish government began the vaccination programme, which Salvador Illa, the Spanish health minister, described as “the beginning of the end.”

The first people to receive the vaccine will be elderly care home residents and staff as well as healthcare workers, with doses allocated regions according to the number of people in them belonging to these groups.