COVID-19: Spain reports 27,000 cases over weekend

OVIEDO, Spain

After a weekend marked by illegal parties across the country, Spain’s Health Ministry reported 27,404 new coronavirus infections on Monday.

The three-day total, which includes data since Friday, is up by less than 1,000 compared to last weekend, but the number of cases diagnosed in the last two weeks continues to climb.

In the last 14 days, 116,464 people have tested positive in Spain -- nearly one-third of them in the capital region of Madrid.

Over the weekend, 101 more COVID-19 patients died and hospital beds taken up by the pandemic jumped from 7.5% to 8.5% nationwide.

In Madrid, 21% of hospital beds are now being used by COVID-19 patients.

Madrid also continues to struggle with testing and tracking capacity, with 21% of all coronavirus tests coming back positive last week -- nearly twice the national average.

Despite the growing contagion, police were busy this weekend trying to control illegal parties across the country.

In Seville, an outdoor party with over 300 guests was broken up. In Madrid, police discovered a sauna acting as an outlawed nightclub, leading to the arrest of eight men. In Oviedo, police crashed a party in an apartment with dozens of medical students.

Nightclubs have been closed across Spain, bars must close their doors shortly after midnight, and gatherings have been limited in many regions. Yet enforcement has posed a major challenge.

The reopening of universities across the country is likely further complicating the effort to halt clandestine parties.

Schools across the country continue to reopen, and 120 more COVID-19-related incidents have occurred so far. Spain’s Princess Leonor is one of hundreds of students to now be in quarantine after a classmate tested positive.

Some entire schools have also shut down, including one in the Galician city of Pontevedra, which has detected at least eight positives in an outbreak.