- Spain reported 950 new coronavirus fatalities on Thursday (April 2), the largest toll in a single day, taking the total number of deaths past 10,000.
MADRID (BLOOMBERG) – Spain reported 950 new coronavirus fatalities on Thursday (April 2), the largest toll in a single day, taking the total number of deaths past 10,000.
Total deaths rose to 10,003 in the past 24 hours, from 9,053 on Wednesday, according to Health Ministry data. The number of confirmed cases increased by 8,102, a bigger gain than Wednesday’s 7,719, to 110,238.
Spain is dealing with the second-most severe outbreak in Europe after Italy. The government has struggled to check the spread of the virus, which has stretched the health service to breaking point and led to a shortage of beds in intensive-care units. The army has been deployed to assist in its biggest domestic peacetime operation.
The devastating impact on the Spanish economy is evident in recent data. The labour ministry on Thursday reported more than 300,000 new jobless claims for March, the highest monthly increase on record. The number doesn’t include hundreds of thousands of workers temporarily laid off after companies shut down following the declaration of a state of emergency on March 14.
The tourism industry, a bellwether of the Spanish economy, has ground to a halt, in a blow to workers who rely on temporary hotel and restaurant jobs over the summer.
Airlines are meeting the government to try to secure liquidity, the transport minister said on Thursday. The country’s largest company by market value, retailer Inditex SA, has closed all its stores in Spain and is considering around 25,000 temporary redundancies if the state of emergency continues beyond April 11.
