Coronavirus deaths continue to mount in Spain and around the world.
What We Know:
- 85% of new infections came from Europe and the United States with Spain registering a record daily increase of 6,584 new infections and a leap of 500 in the death toll to 2,696.
- Spain started storing bodies in an ice skating rink as makeshift morgues. In Madrid, vans driven by workers in protective suits and masks brought bodies to the Palacio de Hielo — Ice Palace — mall to store at its indoor skating rink until they can be buried or cremated. Other facilities became overwhelmed.
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The Spanish capital chose two hotels to serve as emergency hospitals. This will help with the overflow of COVID-19 patients.
- Heath care workers are working around the clock, and supplies is becoming scarce.
- “All over the country, you see examples of workers inventing homemade suits using plastics,” Olga Mediano, a lung specialist at a hospital in Guadalajara, a city east of Madrid, told The Associated Press. “The protective suits are fundamental because without health workers we won’t be able to do anything.”
- There have been more than 46,000 infections and 530 deaths in the U.S. as the virus continues to spread.
- In New York, authorities set up thousands of hospital beds in just weeks. The mayor warned that the city’s hospitals are just 10 days away from shortages in basic supplies, while the state’s governor announced plans to convert a New York City convention center into a hospital.
- In Italy, Spain, and France national health systems are already at their breaking point.
- The outbreak has killed more than 6,000 Italians, the highest death toll of any country.
More than 387,000 people worldwide have been infected by the new coronavirus and more than 16,700 have died.
