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At the moment there has been a shortage of protective equipment and masks at the regional level or a special lack of medicines, but it can occur "if we do not close in a reasonable time the joint purchases of material." This has been expressed by the director of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón , the visible face in the crisis of the coronavirus, this Thursday in his daily appearance that, on this occasion, has also told the Minister of Health Salvador Illa, who will attend tomorrow Friday to a meeting of European Health Ministers in Brussels.

Simon has detailed, given the decision of countries like France to demand a prescription for the purchase of masks, that joint purchases of material for all of Europe do not depend on tomorrow's meeting in Brussels: " We have been working on a joint purchase for a month to guarantee that there is no speculation with the price "and there is availability of products and he has trusted that this joint purchase" will be available soon ". In the meantime, he has confirmed that "we have received some reports of some specific health units that could have identified a lack of equipment, but at the autonomous community level there is no shortage. Yes we are at risk of having it if we do not get within a reasonable time all the joint purchase initiatives "in which it is working. In a similar situation would be the provision of medicines , for which Spain "is also working with companies to have their backs covered."

Simón has expressed himself this way after Minister Illa has expressed his condolences to the three deaths from coronavirus and has announced that he has requested to appear in the Congress of Deputies to account for the actions that are being carried out. It has been Illa who, on this occasion, has tried to calm down by making it clear "we are still at a level of containment. If sanitary measures are followed we are still at a level of containment and the virus can be contained ." Illa has detailed that in the meeting tomorrow he will ask countries to face the same situation to adopt the same measures to avoid discrepancies on situations such as the celebration of closed-door sporting events.

The last ministerial part at 12:14 pm on Thursday, March 5, reported 208 positive cases of coronavirus, including those discharged and the three deaths that have occurred so far linked to coronavirus, although Simon already raised the figure to more than 230 shortly after : Madrid (90 cases) Basque Country (27), Andalusia (12 cases), Aragón (1), Asturias (5), Balearic Islands (6), Canary Islands (8), Cantabria (10), Castilla- La Mancha (13), Castilla y León (11), Catalonia (24), Valencian Community (19), Extremadura (6), Galicia (1), Navarra (3), Basque Country (17) and La Rioja (11) . So far there have been three deaths related to coronavirus in Valencia, Vizcaya and Madrid and there are in total 3 children who have tested positive for coronavirus plus some adolescents, as confirmed by Health. Three other children are isolated at home in Alcalá de Henares when their parents are positive, although the children have no symptoms.

Reassuring about the situation and putting the figures in context, Simón has detailed that in Spain there is currently a case for every 250,000 inhabitants and, although these prevalence figures would be somewhat higher in autonomies such as Cantabria or Madrid it would be specific foci. Currently there would be 20 cases without an identified origin, although 7 of them could be linked to the same focus.

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