Poor data obscures Covid-19 death toll at Spain's nursing homes

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Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly pledged to disclose the impact of the coronavirus in nursing homes — whose elderly residents are particularly vulnerable to the respiratory disease it causes — but the document says it has been impossible to pinpoint the exact figure, Reuters reports.

One slide in the document showed official estimates of the numbers of residents who had died from all causes from the beginning of the outbreak in Spain to June 20 ranged from 27,359 to 32,843, due to disparities between different sources.

Of those, 9,000 died from Covid-19 and a further 9,830 showed symptoms of the disease.

It remains unclear how many of those 9,000 are included in Spain’s official death count of 28,392, but the majority are likely to have been, given the health ministry officially signs off on death certificates and is in charge of testing.

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