Spain registers 43,747 new COVID-19 cases in 7 days with
a massive 9,779 in the past 24 hours

Madrid was the worst affected region of Spain with 13,391 new cases in the last week, twice as many as Catalonia's 6,103, which was the second worst. https://gulfnews.com/world/europe/spain-registers-43747-new-covid-19-cases-in-7-days-1.1598680050503

Hospitalisations have been rising quite rapidly in the last two or three weeks, doubling last week on the week before

And now deaths are rising too.

129 in the last week having been just a handful in a week at the end of June/ early July.

This is before schools/ Unis return

France too is seeing a continuing rise in infections, but the rise has been lagging behind Spain by two or three weeks.

Slow increase in hospitalisations esp around Marseille.

Is mask wearing reducing severity of infections?

People return to work after August breaks next week.

More on France here.

I do wonder whether mask wearing might be reducing the severity of infection...but maybe it is just that the fuse wire we see now is much longer because there is so much more testing.

We see the lead up for longer instead of just before the bomb exploding https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1299666557166129152