By Alyssa McMurtry
OVIEDO, Spain (AA) – The spread of COVID-19 continues to accelerate in post-lockdown Spain, with the Health Ministry detecting 8,532 new cases over the weekend.
The data, published on Monday, does not include complete updates from Madrid, Catalonia, and Navarra, some of the worst-hit areas, suggesting that the true number of people who tested positive over the weekend might be significantly higher.
More than half of the new cases over the weekend — nearly 4,800 — were recorded in the region of Aragon, which has a population of around 1.3 million.
During the previous weekend, around 6,500 cases of COVID-19 were detected. Two weekends ago, the same number was around 4,500.
Over the weekend, nearly 100 more people were hospitalized for the disease, most of whom are based in Aragon.
According to regional data, around 23% of tests in Aragon are coming back positive, resembling the situation earlier this spring, when parts of Spain was devastated by the virus.
A further 27 deaths were reported over the weekend — the biggest two-day spike in several weeks — bringing the total number of fatalities to 28,472.
Despite the spike, officials have not announced any major new measures to control the virus, with the exception of the isolation of around 10,000 people in the towns of Iscar and Pedrajas in central Spain.
On Monday, a new contact tracing app was revealed by the Health Ministry. It still needs to be integrated with regional health data, so it will not be operational in most regions until mid-September.
Meanwhile, the bank BBVA published new data showing that in July, foreign visitor spending was down more than 50% in Spain.
