Spain sees surge in Covid-19 cases with daily post-lockdown record
Spain recorded more than 3,700 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday as the country suffered its worst day since the end of June when lockdown restrictions were eased.
Just under half of the 3,715 cases were recorded in Madrid, which logged 1,535, while the Basque Country and Aragon regions had around 470 new infections each.
The health ministry also reported 14 deaths across the country for the same period, which was down on Tuesday’s 21. In the past seven days, 131 have died from the virus.
The country has seen its cumulative number of cases rise to 370,867, which includes antibody tests.
It means Spain has had more coronavirus infections than anywhere in western Europe and it also has the highest incidence of cases per 100,000 people in the last two weeks.
Regional authorities have been forced to reintroduce some of the restrictions that were eased weeks ago, including those involving nightlife and public transport.
Government officials have attributed the rise in cases to increased testing and insisted that there is not a second wave of the epidemic.
Several local authorities, including Madrid, Catalonia and the Basque Country, have introduced mass testing programmes to identify and isolate all carriers of the virus, including those who are asymptomatic.
The health ministry said it was monitoring 1,019 active clusters of coronavirus.
It added that gatherings between households were responsible for 43 per cent of the clusters, while workplace infections were linked to around 20 per cent of them.