Another warning
The recent catastrophic floods in Spain’s Valencia region serve as a stark reminder of the intensifying climate challenges facing Europe.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Saturday that the extension of the country’s lockdown until April 25 in order to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
During a televised speech Sanchez said , “The cabinet on Tuesday will again ask for authorisation from parliament to extend for a second time the state of alert until Saturday April 25 at midnight”.
The Prime Minister further added, “With the utmost caution, we believe that this is the time that our health system needs to recover”.
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However, Spain on Saturday recorded a second successive daily fall in coronavirus-related deaths with 809 fatalities.
The total number of fatalities in the country stands at 11,744, second only to Italy.
The number of new Spanish cases also slowed to 7,026, taking the total to 124,736.
As many as 951,901 cases of coronavirus infection have been recorded around the world and at least 48,284 people have died, according to the latest information compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Almost 900,000 Spanish workers have lost their jobs since the country went into lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, social security data published on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Spain has suspended the use of Chinese kits to detect coronavirus after being found to be faulty.
Experts have reached a conclusion that the kits from China are failing to detect positive corona cases. Spanish newspaper El Pais in a report said that the Chinese kits have only 30 percent sensitivity and are able to detect only 30 percent of the positive cases whereas the tests need to be at least 80 percent sensitive to be effective.
Last week, Princess Maria Teresa of Spain has died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the first royal victim of the disease.
Also last week, Monaco’s Prince Albert II tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
A week earlier, the Archduke of Austria Karl von Habsburg became the first royal to test positive for COVID-19.
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