Spain has begun its transition into a new phase of de-escalation toward a “new normal” Monday as the country’s health authorities report a second day of record low Covid-19 new infections and deaths.
The country is seeing “the lowest number of cases in two months” by percentage, said Dr. Fernando Simón, Spain’s Director for Health Emergencies, speaking at the government’s daily coronavirus technical briefing.
Spain’s Ministry of Health has reported a record low 0.16% rise of new coronavirus infection cases confirmed by PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests, since Sunday.
The number of deaths rose by 164 in the last 24 hours, bringing the cumulative number of deaths to 25,428 since the start of the pandemic in Spain.
The number of daily recoveries outnumber new infections, but Simón cautioned that even though the data is good, it doesn’t “eliminate risk,” and noted that the positive coronavirus cases figures could be adjusted in the coming days due to delayed weekend holiday reporting.
When asked whether relaxation of the country’s restrictions will mean a new wave of infections, Simón said health authorities are working on early detection to know the number of possible cases much more quickly.
Instead of the [current] periods that can be of up to 10, in some cases 15 days, we want this to be reduced, if possible” Simon said, adding “the objective is a maximum of 48 hours”.
The faster detection and tracking will “guarantee that from the moment you move from one phase to the other, the regions are prepared to respond correctly in case of a [new] outbreak”, Simón explained.
When asked about the possibility of Spain using apps to track the contagion, Simón said: “What we need to know is what added value these apps bring to the systems that we already have in place, or that we are putting place to do contact tracing.”
He also noted that Spain has restrictive data protection laws, so those would need to be taken into consideration “to be sure that they [the apps] don’t infringe on other rights in an irreversible way.”
Restrictions eased: Spain started a transition out of eight weeks of strict restrictions on Monday, under the country’s state of emergency, which has been in place since March 14.
