Spain will lift a two-week mandatory quarantine for all travelers arriving from abroad starting July 1, the government announced Monday.
“The worst is behind us,” Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya wrote on Twitter, adding that next month officials will “gradually” open to international tourists, lift the quarantine measures and “ensure the highest standards of health safety.”
Spain is one of the worst-affected countries in the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 235,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and at least 28,752 deaths, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
– Wuhan conducts over 6.5 million coronavirus tests in 10 days
The Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus pandemic, has conducted more than 6.5 million nucleic acid tests for the novel coronavirus over a 10-day period, according to state media reports.
Earlier this month, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission launched a citywide campaign to test the entire population of 11 million residents for COVID-19 in an effort to search for asymptomatic carriers of the virus after a cluster of new cases emerged for the first time since the city had lifted its strict lockdown on April 8.
Although recommended, participation in the testing campaign is voluntary. Residents who were previously tested do not need to take part. It is not recommended to test children under the age of 6, according to the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission’s website.
No new symptomatic cases of COVID-19 have been reported since the campaign began; however, dozens of people without symptoms have tested positive for the virus, according to daily reports published by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. The local health authority is asking anyone who hasn’t been tested yet to come forward by the end of Tuesday.
Prior to the campaign, the city had completed over 3 million nucleic acid tests for COVID-19, according to the official state-run Xinhua News Agency.
