Spain is now reporting more than 3,400 COVID-19 deaths, making it the second European country with a death toll higher than in China, where the new coronavirus was first detected in late 2019. … The pandemic has severely disrupted life in Spain and Italy, countries that have much smaller populations than China (1.4 billion). Both European countries are more closely comparable to Hubei province, the area in China where the outbreak was first detected. Italy has around 62 million people, according to the most recent CIA World Factbook data, similar to Hubei's nearly 60 million residents. By comparison, Spain has just 50 million people.