The Spanish Ministry of health said Tuesday that the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new coronavirus infections in Spain surpassed 3 million. And more than 12,000 new cases have been confirmed in the United Kingdom. Travelers entering the U.K. will need to be quarantined in hotels. Germany plans to extend the embargo until the end of the month.
Spain confirmed 16,402 new cases on Tuesday, with 766 new deaths in Spain in a single day, a single-day high since April last year, and more than 63,000 cumulative deaths, the Spanish health ministry said.
Spain’s Health Minister Dalias said the occupancy rate of intensive care unit beds will reach a “peak” by the end of the week and that hospitals are under worrying pressure. The Spanish government said it will extend air travel restrictions to the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil until next month to prevent the introduction of the variant of the virus, and border controls with neighboring Portugal will be extended until next month to prohibit non-essential travel, but health care workers, truck drivers and people working across borders will be exempted.
In addition, 12,364 new people were confirmed in the U.K., the lowest number since Dec. 8 last year, with 1,052 new deaths. As of Monday, more than 12.6 million people had received their first dose of the new coronavirus vaccine.
U.K. Health Secretary John Hancock said border control measures will be tightened next week, requiring people arriving in England from the highest-risk countries and regions to be quarantined in designated hotels, with travelers booking rooms in designated hotels before departure, and authorities will arrange for security guards to be stationed at hotels to prevent the introduction of the new variant of coronavirus. Hancock said an agreement has been reached with 16 hotels to provide about 4,600 rooms for quarantine purposes, anyone who enters the declaration with the intention of concealing that they have been to the relevant high-risk areas will face up to 10 years in prison.
It was also reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting with conservative members of parliament, sources revealed that the German government plans to extend the current embargo measures until the end of this month. Merkel held a meeting with the governors of 16 states to discuss the tightening of the embargo measures since mid-December last year. Merkel was quoted as saying she wanted to prioritize the easing of elementary school, kindergartens, barber stores and retail stores, but that the primary goal was to avoid another tightening of the embargo.
The number of confirmed cases in Germany has fallen recently, but there are concerns that infections of the Variant virus are on the rise. Merkel told participants that confirmed cases in Germany, the variant of the virus first discovered in the UK doubles every ten days and is expected to become the dominant virus in Germany.
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