Why has Spain been hit so hard by the coronavirus pandemic?

In Spain, one of the hardest-hit countries in the pandemic, the coronavirus spread quickly and widely without being detected, especially among the elderly, experts told AFP. While they stressed it was too early to carry out a detailed analysis, the experts pointed to the country's sociable lifestyle and close ties between young and older family members as significant factors in the virus's spread. While Spain has the world's highest coronavirus death toll per capita after Belgium, its mortality rate -- the percentage of infected patients who die -- stands at 10.4 percent, below other hard-hit nations like Italy, France and Britain.