Spain reports 435 new COVID-19 deaths, new infections slow down

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's death toll from the coronavirus rose by 435 to 41,688 on Tuesday - the steepest daily increase in the second wave of contagion - but new infections continued to slow, health ministry data showed.

The cumulative tally of infections in the Western European country with the highest case load after France rose by 13,159 from Monday to 1,510,023, well below record daily increases of some 24,000 in late October and over 18,000 a week ago.

The pressure on intensive care units across Spain diminished slightly for the first time after a long period of rises, with 32.3% of all ICU beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, down from almost 33% on Monday.

Spain imposed a six-month state of emergency at the end of October, giving its regions legal backing to implement curfews and restrict travel.

The number of deaths added to the official statistics in one day is about half the nearly 900 deaths at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in late March.

(Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Dan Grebler)