ARCHIVED - Murcia Region extends closure of borders until December 9th

This affects both external regional borders and internal municipal borders

On Thursday 18th November the Murcian regional government announced that both external regional borders as well as internal municipal borders would remain closed until after the Puente de la Constitución.

This year the main day falls on Sunday December 6th, so this holiday has been moved to Monday 7th December in many regions.

Monday December 7th, Monday, is a bank Holiday in the following areas of Spain: Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra and La Rioja, as well as in the Autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. In all of these communities there will also be a holiday on December 8th, the Day of the Immaculate Conception, so some workers will take off the remaining three days of the week and enjoy a full 9 day off for the loss of only three days of holiday.

It’s widely expected that many of the autonomous regional governments will decide to keep their regional "borders" closed to prevent the population moving around the country as this is generally a popular weekend for short breaks, and city dwellers will often head to the coast or holiday homes in country villages, something all of the regional governments are keen to avoid during this period of the covid crisis.

The Valencia Region announced this week that it would be maintaining its perimeter border until at least the 9th December, after the holiday, as have Castilla La Mancha (which borders with Madrid, Valencia, Andalucia and Murcia), Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country and Navarra. Catalunya has already indicated that it is considering closing its borders and others are likely to follow.

Murcia has now formally announced its intention to join this list and is also maintaining the restriction on travel between municipalities of the region until the same date.

This means that residents are not allowed to leave the municipality in which they habitually reside other than for essential reasons.

In addition, the curfew will continue, as will other restrictions currently in place, including the closure of bars and restaurants other than specifically in municipalities which meet the criteria of a new tiered system which will be published in detail tomorrow (this Saturday hostelry establishments can re-open in ten municipalities: Click for details).

These measures first came into effect on October 28th and were extended for a further 14 days on November 8th.

This week there has been a drop in the number of new cases reported by the Murcian health authorities as the restrictions take effect, but there are still more than 11,000 active cases in the region as of today.
The accumulated incidence rate, which is calculated based on the number of cases per 100,000 of population, has fallen significantly in the last week in the Region, from 788 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days to 623 (60 is the target rate over 14 days and 25 over 7 days), but there is still significant pressure on intensive care units which had 109 patients on Thursday, as well as 571 patients hospitalised with serious covid cases.

The regional president, Fernando López Miras was uncompromising in his message that " de-escalation will be slow" and warned residents not to get their hopes up for a relaxation of measures for the Christmas holidays.

He repeated his crisis messaging that the compliance of everyone is required to bring case numbers down: “It is true that the incidence of infections has dropped significantly and that the measures we put in place have paid off, but it is also true that even today the pressure to which our healthcare professionals, our hospitals are subjected and, specifically the UCI units, is still higher than desirable, " he explained, stressing that" this forces us to remain prudent. "

In theory, the current decline in infections should begin to feed through in the coming days to the occupancy levels in hospitals, and ICU units, but the level of cases is so high that it will take weeks for the cases to work their way through the system, PROVIDING there isn´t a resurgence in new cases.