Spain is currently Europe's major problem in terms of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the BBC. This is shown in a graph that portrays the number of new cases detected per million people from June 1st to August 1st in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and Spain, with data extracted from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
The graph speaks for itself. At the beginning of June, the UK stood out, with a figure of about 30 new cases per million people, while the other countries were below the figure of 20 new cases per million. But since then, Spain's curve has sloped upwards dramatically, separating from the rest of the major Western European countries during July, until now in August, new cases in Spain are around four times as high as those of the next ranked country in the graph, France.
Thus, in the first days of August, Spain registered more than 60 new cases per million people, while Italy was around five cases, Germany and the United Kingdom close to ten, and France a little short of 20.
Spanish health minister, Salvador Illa / ACN
Numbers of daily new cases
Spain is also seen as the "sick man of Europe" - as the expression goes - in the BBC's comparison of absolute numbers of new Covid-19 cases across European countries. In fact, it is the only country to reach an average of 2,500 new cases per day as of August 4th, while Italy, France, Germany and Belgium were all below 1,000.
The official figures from Spain's health ministry today showed an average of 2,772 new confirmed Covid-19 cases daily over the last week. By the BBC's count, the Spanish state has had a total of 305,767 cases since the pandemic began, only exceeded in Europe by the UK (307,184) and Russia (870,187).
This situation of new cases in Spain has led several countries to establish restrictive measures to prevent their citizens from travelling to the Spanish state, with Switzerland the latest, having yesterday announced a ten-day quarantine period for travellers returning from Spanish territory. In addition, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Belgium have also imposed some kind of quarantine on people visiting Spain.
Other countries, such as the United States, Argentina, China, Morocco and Peru prohibit their citizens from visiting Spain.