COVID-19 cases surge beyond 188k in Spain

The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Spain rose to 188,068 on Friday, according to foreign media.

Health authorities identified 5,252 new cases of the virus between Thursday and Friday, which represents a 2.9% increase.

As many as 585 people died of the infection, taking the death toll to 19,715.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in China’s Hubei province, and the virus has spread to 210 countries and territories since then.

To date, COVID-19 cases surpassed 2,100,000 globally, resulting in more than 550,000 recoveries and over 147,000 deaths.

On February 11, the WHO officially named the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as COVID-19, and on March 11, declared it a pandemic.