Date Published: 25/09/2020
ARCHIVED - Madrid extends covid restrictions from Monday but national Government wants to see stricter measures
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The national Government wants to see all of Madrid confined
As anticipated, the Community of Madrid has officially announced that on Monday it will be expanding the area of Madrid subjected to mobility restrictions, with eight further areas added to the 37 basic health areas deemed to have a high incidence of covid transmission within the last 14 days.
In total, about 170,000 people live in these neighborhoods, so from Monday there will be more than one million people in the Madrid Community subject to mobility or activity restrictions.
The eight additional areas being included within the limitations from next week are Panaderas, in Fuenlabrada; doctor Trueta and Miguel Servet, in Alcorcón; also several areas of districts of the capital: Vicálvaro-Artilleros (Vicálvaro); Orcasitas (Usera); Campo de la Paloma and Rafael Alberti (Puente de Vallecas); and García Noblejas (Ciudad Lineal).
In addition, the Community of Madrid has also advised avoiding "unnecessary" mobility throughout the region and at the moment, the restrictions on hours and capacity within the hospitality sector have not been changed or raised.
The measures announced this Friday will come into effect at 00:00 on Monday, September 28th and will have an initial duration of 14 days.
The new areas will be included in the original order, which will be amended. On Friday afternoon the judiciary approved the confinement measures, which means that the regional government can now start to issue fines for those failing to comply with the mobility restrictions.
On Friday Madrid notified 3,121 new cases, 782 of them diagnosed within the last 24 hours and 51 deaths. The total numbers diagnosed since the pandemic began in Madrid totalled 219,592 and the total fatalities 10,188.
Announcement heightens disagreement between Madrid Government and the national Government.
The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, has made it publicly obvious that the Madrid government is choosing to ignore the four recommendations that the central government has made to assist the regional government to control the pandemic and that it considers the measures inadequate given the current situation.
He made his feelings clearly known in a press conference from Moncloa that overlapped with that of the regional authorities, the image of disagreement and lack of coordination between the two highly visible.
On Monday Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and regional president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso met to discuss a common strategy, although after the meeting and ever since, the divide between their stance as to how the outbreaks in the capital city should be tackled have only been heightened by their attempts to publicly show solidarity.
The Health Mnistry would like to extend the perimeter confinement to the entire municipality of Madrid and to all cities that present more than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last fifteen days, double the national average that exists at this time.
The Madrid health authorities use the figure of 1000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants by which to judge which areas should be confined and so refuse to confine the whole city.
The ministry has also recommended that circulation of those currently restricted should be allowed within the Autonomous Community but that a recommendation be included to avoid all unnecessary displacements.
The third of the recommendations has been that consumption at bars be prohibited throughout the region and the fourth that the capacity of the terraces be restricted to 50%.
"You have to act with determination, there are no shortcuts," Illa said in his presentation “Our attitude is one of cooperation but also one of clarity: there are no shortcuts. You have to take control. I still think that very tough weeks lie ahead for Madrid ”.