Spain’s Ministry of Health readjusted its official data today, reporting 585 new deaths between Thursday and Friday.
The official death total is now 19,478 — up only 348 compared to Thursday.
TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES REACHED TO 72,963.
“We are trying to correct the data so that it is coherent […] We had a discrepancy with one regional government so we had to readjust,” said Fernando Simon, Spain’s chief epidemiologist, in a press conference on Friday.
The number of recoveries was also reduced, with the new total at 72,963.
This week, some regions of Spain began to tally the number of suspected coronavirus deaths. That data suggests that the true coronavirus death toll in Spain may be significantly higher than the nearly 20,000 reported.
The Health Ministry of Catalonia now estimates that more than 7,500 people have died in the region due to coronavirus, nearly double the number included in Spain’s official statistics.
On Friday, the Spanish government issued a decree ordering regional governments to report more detailed information, but only about cases confirmed via medical testing.