About 200,000 Spaniards again under cover. Catalonia on Saturday July 4 ordered the containment of an area around Lleida in north-eastern Spain, due to the multiplication of cases of contagion of the new coronavirus. Containment officially started at noon, entry and exit to this area are now restricted.

"We have decided to confine the Segria area (around the city of Lleida), on the basis of data confirming a very significant increase in the number of contagions of Covid-19," the region's president told reporters , the independentist Quim Torra.

17 dead in 24 hours

Spain recorded 17 deaths from the coronavirus in a day on Friday, according to the Ministry of Health, the highest daily number of deaths since June 19.

Only five deaths were reported Thursday. And the chief epidemiologist of the Ministry of Health, Fernando Simon, had then emphasized that only 24 deaths had been recorded during the previous seven days.

These figures fell when many Spaniards went on vacation and while Spain opened its borders on Saturday to nationals of 12 new countries, following the recommendations of the European Union.

Spain had already reopened its borders on June 21 to EU and Schengen nationals as well as to the British.

To cope with the influx of visitors, the Ministry of Health said Friday that new reinforcements had been deployed at airports in Spain, to "control the arrival of travelers". They take the temperature of the arrivals and collect their personal data so that they can be contacted in the event of screening.

With AFP

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