With an additional 551 deaths tallied since yesterday, Spain’s official coronavirus death toll has reached 19,130, Spain’s Health Ministry said Thursday.
But the central government’s death count does not include data reported last night by the government of Catalan, which includes Barcelona, home to some 5.6 million people.
1,810 MORE DEATHS IN NURSING HOMES
On Wednesday, Catalonia began to include data from funeral services to calculate the total coronavirus death toll. The new methodology nearly doubled the region’s total death count and includes 1,810 more deaths in nursing homes, 62 from a social health center, and 456 people who died at home.
The government of Catalonia now reports 7,097 total coronavirus deaths, up from 3,756 the day before.
If this were included in the central government records, Spain would now have at least 22,300 deaths, a significant rise.
Previously, as is still the case in most of Spain, Catalonia only officially counted the deaths of people who died in hospitals and had taken a test that confirmed they had coronavirus.
All Spanish regions have been asked to send more complete data on deaths to Spain’s central government. Fernando Simon, Spain’s chief epidemiologist, said yesterday he is still waiting on some regions before the central government can publish the complete data.