Why will Sánchez not recognise all Spain's dead?
(17/06/2020) Regional coronavirus data show 1,437 people have died since the Spanish government stopped publishing daily death updates.
(Original published: 17/06/2020)
It is not very difficult to uncover the number of coronavirus deaths Spanish regional governments have notified publicly over the past few weeks. Just a few hours digging up the right information from some webpages and another few hours making some phone calls to different places around the country, including Spain's North African cities, to confirm some of the information. No Deep Throats, no deep state secrets, no weeks travelling around the nation. Then add up the numbers and compare them to the ones published by the Health Ministry.
The total figure that exercise has produced, 40,993 deaths, is not very far off the MoMo excess mortality figure of 43,424 generated by Spain's death registry system, or the 43,945 figure the National Statistics Institute published, or the 43,985 figure the Association of Spanish Funeral Home Professionals published. It is very far, like the others, from the total the Spanish Health Ministry insists on publishing, day after day: 27,136. That official total, between 13,000 and 17,000 lower than the rest, has now been static for 11 days. It has not budged by even one single extra dead person.
Equally as disconcerting is the total figure, 1,437 deaths, that such a national analysis produces for the 21 days between May 25 and June 14. On May 25, the Health Ministry stopped providing a daily increase figure, instead offering a "dead in the last 7 days" number, which has been published as a low few dozen each day since. The official total has not gone up and the official 7-day rolling number is in the low dozens. The regional data, however, show 1,437 new Covid deaths have been notified in that same period, and the seven-day rolling total, comparable to the new government number, is some 10 times larger.
Does the Spanish government not respect or appreciate the data from the regions, compiled by regional civil servants and health professionals? Why is the government not accepting the broader totals published by the MoMo, the INE or funeral home organisations? What is the point of organising a national homage to 27,000 victims and not the full total? Do the families of those dead citizens not also deserve some recognition or explanation? How can Mr. Sánchez, Mr. Illa and Mr. Simón continue to justify such a low number? Where, in fact, is the government getting its daily 7-day deaths figure from?
Nobody is suggesting 100,000 or half a million or any other such extravagant number. The alternative figures have all been produced by professionals who are part of the death registry and notification system in Spain, and they are all similar totals. Why do the extra 17,000 or so not seem to be worthy of recognition from this Spanish government? What is the Prime Minister's alternative explanation for such a difference? In terms of the next stages of the national healthcare and economic plan, the operation to bring the tourists back, what effect would a 7-day death total ten times the government number have? What would happen if foreign media outlets all of a sudden started reporting to their viewers, Spain's potential tourists, that actually there still appears to be quite a lot of coronavirus dying going on in Spain, according to the country's own regional governments?