Spain’s government was preparing new measures on Tuesday to help households and exempt small firms from social security payments after business leaders bristled at a tightening of the coronavirus lockdown in Europe’s second worst-hit country.

The death toll hit 8,189 after 849 fatalities were reported overnight, while confirmed cases of the virus rose by about 11 per cent to 94,417. In percentage terms, however, the pace of increases in both contagion and deaths has slowed somewhat in the past few days, health officials said.

Health emergency chief Fernando Simon, who tested positive for the virus on Monday, said in a video news conference Spain was unlikely to need further restrictive measures, besides those already announced, while that data was being analysed.

Spain has already surpassed China, where the disease originated in late 2019, in the number of deaths and infections and has the world’s second-highest death toll after Italy.

A government source told Reuters that as part of a 700 million-euro aid package likely to be approved during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, the government wants to suspend evictions of vulnerable households for the six months after the state of emergency is lifted.

This would cover the unemployed, workers who have been temporarily laid off or had their hours cut, and self-employed people on low earnings. Previous aid packages, such as a moratorium on mortgage payments, had stricter criteria to qualify.

However, business leaders criticised the recent tightening of the restrictions, which prevent non-essential workers from leaving their homes, and complained that a lack of consultation with the private sector left companies unprepared.