New coronavirus cases and deaths rise in Spain
The number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths recorded in the last 24 hours have both increased in Spain, health authorities said Friday.
A total of 188,068 people have been infected with COVID-19 in Spain, after a rise of 5,252 new cases on Friday, more than 5,183 on Thursday, though the daily percentage increase dipped slightly from 2.9 percent to 2.8 percent.
According to the country's health ministry, Spain's daily death toll increased by 585 to 19,478, compared with 551 on Thursday, with the number of recoveries now standing at 72,963.
Speaking on Thursday, Fernando Simon, head of the Center for the Coordination for Health Emergencies at the Spanish Ministry for Health, explained that the recent increases in cases are because Spain has doubled the number of antibody tests and discovered many previously unreported cases among people who have recovered from the coronavirus and subsequently developed immunity.
"We are now seeing things that we not being taken into consideration earlier, but we won't know the true impact of the epidemic, or the true number of people who are infected, until it has finished," he added on Friday in his daily press conference.
Madrid continues to be Spain's the worst affected region and the death toll there reached 7,007 on Friday.