Spain sees fall in deaths but slight rise in new coronavirus cases

The number of deaths in a 24-hour period from COVID-19 fell for the third consecutive day in Spain, according to data collected by the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare by 21:00 hours on Friday and made public on Saturday.

The total number of people who have lost their lives from the virus in Spain rose by 510 to 16,353. This is fewer than the 605 new deaths in the previous 24-hour period and the 683 confirmed on Thursday. It was the fewest daily number of COVID-19 deaths since March 23.

This means death figures have now fallen for three successive days after going up on Tuesday and Wednesday. However, the data should be treated with caution due to the fact that Thursday and Friday were public holidays and could have led to delay in reporting data on all those who lost their lives over that period.

There was a slight rise in the number of new infections, with 4,830 confirmed on Saturday, 254 more than the 4,576 new cases reported on Friday, but considerably down from Thursday's figure of 5,756. And the tally of infections stood at 161,852 by Saturday.

Meanwhile, 7,535 patients are still under intensive care, 53 more than the previous 24 hours.

New recoveries of 3,441 over the 24-hour period have brought the total to 59,109, which indicates that the pressure on Spain's intensive care units continues to ease.

The region of Madrid has registered 6,084 fatalities from a total of 45,849 cases, while Catalonia has seen 3,331 deaths from 32,984 cases.

Earlier on Saturday, the Spanish government extended the decree to maintain its land borders closed for another 14 days until midnight on April 25.