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 Parliament voted in the early hours of Thursday to extend emergency
measures - including the state of lockdown that has seen people
confined to their homes except for essential trips for food,
medicine and work.
Confirmed cases in Spain have jumped 10-fold since the state of
emergency was imposed on March 14, while its death toll exceeded
China's on Wednesday, with 738 lives lost in a single day.
"It is not easy to extend the state of emergency," Prime Minister
Pedro Sanchez said in Parliament. "I am convinced the only efficient
option against the virus is social isolation."
A majority of 321 lawmakers voted in favor of the extension, while
28 abstained. The largest opposition party, the conservative
People's Party, supported the measure. However, its leader Pablo
Casado chastized Sanchez for what he described as a late and
inadequate response to the crisis.
Casado blasted the decision not to cancel the International Women's
Day marches on March 8, which drew hundreds of thousands of people
to the streets, and criticized the government's failure to provide
medical professionals with vital equipment.
"Governments don't send their soldiers to the front without helmets,
flak jackets and ammunition. But our health workers don't have any
protection," Casado told parliament.
Nursing homes, whose elderly residents are highly vulnerable to the
disease, have been particularly hard hit.
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An analysis by radio network Cadena Ser found at least 397 residents of such
homes had died from coronavirus, more than 10% of the country's 3,434 death
toll. The health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment
on the findings.
In Madrid, Spain's worst affected region, hearses continued to arrive at the
city's ice rink, which was converted into a makeshift morgue after authorities
said existing facilities lacked resources.
Procuring equipment like masks, scrubs and gloves has become difficult as the
government fights to contain the virus.
Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez complained that market speculation was driving
up prices for some items.
"We must favor long-term purchases from a group of more stable and more
established companies so that we don't depend on these crooks," she told Basque
radio station Radio Euskadi.
Government spokeswoman Maria Jesus Montero said separately that some suppliers
were not meeting delivery deadlines.
Spain has ordered 432 million euros ($471.4 million) of masks, gloves and
testing kits from China, and has turned to NATO partners for protective gear and
ventilators.
(Reporting by Jessica Jones, Inti Landauro, Clara-Laeila Laudette and Emma
Pinedo; Writing by Inti Landauro and Nathan Allen; Editing by Ingrid Melander
and Angus MacSwan)
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