The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Spain rose to 188,068 on Friday, the country’s head of health emergencies, Fernando Simon, said at a news conference.
Health authorities identified 5,252 new cases of the virus between Thursday and Friday, which represents a 2.9% increase.
The head of Spain’s centre for health emergencies put the overnight death toll at 585.
Official figures from the health ministry are based only on deaths of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus. But a lot of people are likely to have died from the virus without having been tested, meaning their deaths do not figure in the official count.
On Thursday, the government ordered all the regions to change their criteria for reporting deaths, infections and recoveries. It said that all deaths of people who had tested positive for Covid-19 needed to be recorded, whether they occurred in hospitals, homes, or care homes but there are indications of problems with conflicting numbers.
The new recording and reporting criteria also seem to have skewed the number of cured people. On Thursday, the health ministry said that 74,797 people across Spain had recovered. Twenty-four hours later, the total had dropped to 72,963.
