Spain’s death toll passes China’s

More than 4,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Spain as of Thursday. Only Italy has had more deaths—about 7,500. Spain’s daily death toll of 655 on Wednesday was lower than it has been recently, and health officials hope the outbreak is reaching its peak in the country.

How are other European nations faring? The number of new cases in Italy fell for the fourth day in a row, according to the country’s Civil Protection Agency. In France, health officials used special high-speed trains to transport about 20 patients from the northeastern region of Alsace to areas with less crowded hospitals. The number of infections worldwide climbed toward 500,000 on Thursday, Johns Hopkins University reported.

Dig deeper: Read Mindy Belz’s WORLD Magazine column about remembering people in more dire conditions as the outbreak spreads.