The Spanish government will revise upward the death toll of the new coronavirus, to "about 28,000" against 27,136 currently, a figure "frozen" since early June, announced Thursday the director of the center of health alerts.
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A new method of counting the victims in question
The official death toll has not changed since June 7, after methods of accounting for cases and deaths were changed in late May. "Unfortunately, we have a large percentage, around 28,000, tomorrow we will give more reliable and safer data, but around 28,000 deaths," said Fernando Simon during his daily press conference.
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Opposition party accuses government of hiding real death toll
Until the end of May, when the epidemic was in sharp decline, the Ministry of Health reported 50 to 100 new deaths daily. But since the change of method, the figure has dropped to less than five, or even no deaths for several days. The right and far right opposition accuses the left government of Pedro Sanchez of hiding the real number of dead. Dr. Simon recently admitted that the total death toll had been "frozen" due to "discrepancies" in the figures, which he said were notably due to delays in some areas. The regions are responsible for health in Spain.
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The overall assessment therefore remains unchanged while the regions review their data. The new accounting system is supposed, according to the government, to detect more quickly outbreaks of contagion in the event of a resumption of the epidemic. The National Institute of Statistics and a public research organization also announced in late May that the country had globally recorded since mid-March an excess mortality of 43,000 deaths compared to the average of the last ten years.