Spain today announced 324 new coronavirus deaths while the number of cases in the country surged nearly 5,000 up to 24,926. 

Spain’s Health Ministry said today that COVID-19 deaths had risen to 1,326 from 1,002 in the space of 24 hours.

News of the rising death tally comes as it was revealed that more than 31,000 people have been fined for flouting the lockdown rules announced by Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez last Saturday.

Another 350 have been arrested nationwide, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has revealed.

Police stopped a couple caught having sex in a parked car in the street in the Madrid neighborhood of Villaverde.

They were told to go home after claiming they could not get intimate with each other where they lived because they shared with too many people.

Several people were fined by police in Alicante after they discovered they were taking it in turns to walk the same dog.

Another four people were fined after police aborted a rave at a hotel nightclub in Leganes near the Spanish capital in the early hours of Thursday morning.

A South American man was arrested by police in Malaga on Thursday near the city’z Maria Zambrano train station after going up to strangers in the street and hugging them without their consent.

On Tuesday a 40-year-old woman was arrested near the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza for spitting at police officers called to her house following a disturbance. A coronavirus test on her came back positive on Thursday.

The state of emergency introduced just before midnight last Saturday in Spain limits peoples’ ability to leave their homes.

Going to work and supermarkets to buy food is allowed as is a short walk with your dog near your normal place of residence so it can pee and poop. Going for a jog or a cycle, even on your own, is not allowed.

Clothes shops, pubs, restaurants, theatres, and cinemas are closed.

The lockdown is due to last a fortnight but Spanish government ministers have already said they expect to have to extend it and warned the next few days will be the worst so far.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide kicked off the weekend under a coronavirus lockdown, as the global death toll accelerated sharply and the World Health Organization warned young people they were ‘not invincible’.

The pandemic has completely upended lives across the planet, sharply restricting the movement of huge populations, shutting down schools and businesses, and forcing millions to work from home – while many have lost their livelihoods entirely.

While President Donald Trump insisted the United States was ‘winning’ the war against the virus, individual states dramatically ramped up restrictions, with New York and Illinois joining California in ordering residents to stay home.

American country music legend Kenny Rogers has died aged 81.

A family representative said he “passed away peacefully at home from natural causes”.

Rogers topped pop and country charts during the 1970s and 1980s and won three Grammy awards.

Known for his husky voice and ballads including The Gambler, Lucille and Coward Of The County, his career spanned more than six decades.

He once summed up his popularity by explaining that he believed his song “say what every man wants to say and that every woman wants to hear”.

He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013 and, that same year received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Country Music Association.

https://youtu.be/-oGeTJ77vUs

In their statement his family said he “left an indelible mark on the history of American music”.

A keen businessman, Rogers also led several ventures over the years, mainly in property and the restaurant sector.

He was married five times and had five children.

BBC

Italy’s coronavirus death toll has leapt by 627 in a single day, an increase of 18.4 percent, taking the total to 4,032 – by far the largest daily rise in absolute terms since the virus emerged a month ago.

On Thursday, Italy overtook China as the country to register most deaths from the highly contagious virus.

Until today, Italy had never recorded more than 475 deaths in a single day, while China, where the virus has slowed sharply, has never reported more than 150.

The total number of cases in Italy rose to 47,021 from a previous 41,035, an increase of 14.6%, the Civil Protection Agency said.

The hardest-hit northern region of Lombardy remains in a critical situation, with 2,549 deaths and 22,264 cases.

Of those originally infected nationwide, 5,129 had fully recovered on Friday compared to 4,440 the day before. There were 2,655 people in intensive care against a previous 2,498.

It follows Lombardy sending for the army to enforce its coronavirus lockdown today as 380 more people died in that region alone and doctors in Italy’s crisis-hit hospitals described an ‘endless stream’ of sick patients.

The region in northern Italy has hired 114 soldiers to keep people inside after some Italians defied the country’s quarantine rules – hampering its efforts to halt the world’s deadliest outbreak.

More than 53,000 people have already been issued with summons for violating the rules, with some people going shopping several times a day while others have been exercising together outdoors.

The northern region of Veneto shut parks today and said residents could no longer go for walks, while adjacent Emilia-Romagna banned jogging and bicycle rides, saying people had to stay indoors to prevent infections.

Towns have taken measures such as shutting down public wi-fi and closing down gambling machines in the few shops that remain open in a desperate bid to keep people inside.

‘Unfortunately we are not seeing a change of trend in the numbers, which are rising,’ Lombardy governor Attilio Fontana told a news conference today as he announced the army would step in.

The crisis has overwhelmed Italy’s health service, prompting doctors to urge Britain to enter a total lockdown now to prevent a similar crisis engulfing the health service in the UK.

‘What I would suggest is just shut down to stop the outbreak,’ said Dr Lorenzo Grazioli, who works at the Papa Giovanni XII hospital in hard-hit Bergamo and was previously based in the UK.

Another health worker in Italy – British nurse Connor McAinsh – told ITV News that ‘it’s just an endless stream of people coming in and as soon as we have a bed, we have a new patient coming in who needs critical care’. 

Some patients have been wearing tightly-sealed ‘bubble’ helmets in intensive care, which help them breathe and have been shown to improve survival chances.

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