Coronavirus death toll in Spain drops for third day straight as United States fatalities continue to climb

A medical worker administers a test for a COVID-19 at a facility in Camden, N.J., Wednesday, April 1, 2020.The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.(Matt Rourke/AP)

The daily coronavirus death toll in Spain dropped again for the third consecutive day with 501 fatalities recorded, its lowest single-day increase since March 23.

The new deaths reported Saturday morning bring the nation’s total death toll to 16,353, marking a 15 percent drop in the number of victims from the day before. The total amount of people diagnosed daily also continued to fall, with 4,830 new cases in 24 hours, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Spain has seen more than 161,000 people test positive since the start of the global pandemic. They are second in the world in confirmed cases only to the United States, where 501,615 people have been infected.

The US for weeks trailed behind both Spain and Italy with number of deaths linked to COVID-19. But it surpassed Spain just days ago and with 18,777 coronavirus deaths, is poised to overtake Italy as global leader in just hours.

The number of Italians killed by the worldwide pandemic stood at 18,849 early Saturday morning. The hard-hit nation, like Spain however, has similarly seen a flattening of its curve in recent days.

Meanwhile, the United States reported 2,108 new coronavirus deaths in the last 24 hours, its highest daily increase to date.

Worldwide, the official COVID-19 death count surged past 100,000 Friday afternoon, with nearly 1.7 million people infected with the sickness.