Covid-19 Pandemic: Spain Calls for a G20 Coordinated Action

At the G20 virtual summit on Thursday, Spain's President Pedro Sanchez proposed that the United Nations become the center of the multilateral response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Specifically, he asked that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spearhead a global initiative to assess the damage caused by this crisis and develop a "road map" to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

He also asked for "unprecedented global coordination" to face the Covid-19 effects and G20 action to ensure the recovery of production and employment.  Likewise, Sanchez proposed the creation of a global fund to fight pandemics as a preventive measure.

On Thursday, the presidents and heads of state of the G20, a group bringing together the 20 most powerful economies, held a video conference to analyze the pandemic's effects.

"We are injecting more than US$5 billion into the global economy as part of targeted fiscal policies, economic measures, and guarantee programs to counter the social, economic and financial impact of the pandemic," the G20 leaders said in a statement.

Their text does not clarify whether that amount is made up of new funds or includes the US$2 billion that the United States said it would introduce into its economy.

In Spain, Health Minister Salvador Illa reported that the death toll reached 4,089 patients and 56,188 people are infected, while there are 3,679 patients in intensive care, and 7,015 hospital discharges. Over the last 24 hours, 655 people died and 8,578 Covid-19 cases were reported.

Madrid continues to be the most affected city with 2,090 people dead, 265 of whom died in the last 24 hours.

Hospital ICU admissions in Madrid's region rose 6 percent in one day, creating even more pressure on a hospital system on the brink of saturation.

Despite those figures, the Health Minister stressed that, for the first time since the pandemic started, the number of deaths fell from the previous day.

He is also confident that this slight daily reduction in new infections and deaths will confirm later that the pandemic's stabilization phase began in his country.