Murcia Today Weekly Bulletin 7th November

Spain:

Covid case numbers:

Last Friday the Ministry of Health notified 25,595 new cases, bringing the overall total up to 1,185,678 and the total cases detected last week to 139,546 (from 109,572 the previous week.)

This Friday the Ministry notified 22,500 new cases, bringing the overall total up to 1,328,832 and the total of new cases for this week to 143,154, so this week there has been an increase in the number of cases detected, but a de-celeration in the rise of the rate of infections. With a significant number of restrictions now in place, it is hoped that the spread of the virus can be "stalled" and that we can start to see a levelling off in the number of new cases in the coming weeks.

However, if this happens, it will take time for the effects of the contagions to work their way through, as logically new infections rise first, followed by a rise in hospitalisations and then finally, the number of deaths rise, a process that usually takes 2-3 weeks.

Deaths:

Last Friday the Ministry notified 239 deaths, bringing the total for last week up to 1,126 and the overall figure since the start of the pandemic to 35,878

This Friday the Ministry notified 347 deaths, bringing the total for last week up to 2,955 and the overall total to date to 38,833.

This figure however, is not fully representative of the situation last week, as on Wednesday the Ministry of Health adjusted the figures by 1600 cases following a review of the system used for collating data.In March and April, when the resources of the health services were under extreme pressure, aggregated data were used in order to reduce the amount of paperwork involved, but from 11th May onwards individual reports from each health authority have been re-introduced as the norm. From April onwards each regional health service began to update its database in order to compile a more complete picture, and the result is the abrupt increase in the death toll reported on Wednesday, with older cases checked and verified, then added into the system. So this gives an actual increase of 1355 cases for this week, a rise of 229 from last week.

Towards the end of the week the figures started to increase from an average of around 200 a day, the figures on Thursday and Friday 368 and 347 respectively.

There is no disease in Spain that kills this number of people; even flu only kills around 4,000 people each winter.

Accumulated incidence (rate per 100,000 of population) over a 14 day period

Three weeks ago Spain had an accumulated incidence rate of 280.44 per 100,000; last week this increased to 484.28 and this Friday the rate is now 525.74 another large increase, given that the target number of cases by which we can say that the virus is under control is 25 per 100,000.

This is a high risk situation and applies to all of Spain except the Canary Islands, with 60% of the total Spanish population living in an area with a rate of over 500 per 100,000, in other words, high risk areas. Navarra continues to be the autonomous community with the highest incidence: 1,200 cases/100,000 of population, but the rate of increase here has slowed down as harsh restrictions start to take effect.
A de-celeration is also visible in most areas of the country, with the rate of increase visibly slowing down; in Aragon which has a rate of 1077.85 per 100,000 ( slowing from a growth of 140% to 30%), Cantabria with a rate of 450.89 (slowing from a growth rate of 180% to 50%), Valencian Community with an IA of 252.45 (130% to 80%), Galicia with a rate of 339.06 (from 120% to 60%), Extremadura and a rate of 597.82 (from 100% to 70%), Andalusia and a rate of 545.02 (from 100% to 70%), Basque Country with 690.65 (from 100% to 60%), Castilla y León and a rate of 809.49 (from 90% to 50%), Castilla-La Mancha with 550.90(from 80 % to 50%), Asturias with 471.55 (from 80% to 45%) and La Rioja with 802.09 (from 40% to 10%). The Balearic and Canary Islands are stable, with very low rates but Murcia is currently problematic, with its growth accelerating.
 

Pressure on hospital system:
As of today there are 20,239 patients in hospital wards (18,162 last Friday) with severe cases of covid across Spain, and 2,863 ( 2,296 last Friday) in intensive care.

The bed occupancy levels have been stealthily rising all week; last Friday this figure was 14.73%, this Friday it is 16.30%.

The national average for ICU beds on Friday is 29.78% nationally with soe regions reporting very high risk figures; in Melilla 42% of ICU beds are occupied by covid patients; in Aragón the figure is 50%, in Ceuta 41%, Catalunya 42%, La Rioja 55%, Castilla y León 42%, Madrid 37% and Navarra 40%.

All of this demonstrates a steady rise in hospitalisations, and hospital occupancy has increased right across the country, placing the health system under further pressure.

A figure of 15% occupancy is deemed to place the pressure on the resources of a regional health authority under high risk, 25% is deemed to represent very high risk, so most of the country is now operating under high or very high risk levels. As the pressure on these resources increases, so does the capacity of the system to cope. In many cases this is being handled by reducing non-essential operations.

The downside of this is the pressure under which it places health professionals, which can lead to errors and deaths which are not directly associated with coronavirus, but are in fact a side-effect of it due to the pressure on health resources. A sad case occurred this week in the Region of Valencia, which actually has one of the lowest IA rates in all of Spain (although this week has seen a visible rise in cases) and involved an 8 year-old boy in Petrer, close to the town of Elda in the province of Alicante, after he was taken to the A&E unit of the local hospital with severe stomach pains five times in four days.

Although tests were reportedly performed in A&E, no treatment was given and the child died. An autopsy has since revealed that the boy was suffering from peritonitis, which is treatable, and an investigation has now been launched to determine why this happened. Pressure on health resources is being blamed for the death.


Outbreaks
There have been more than 1,500 new outbreaks this week across Spain and one of the most-asked questions by frustrated residents now being expected to endure stricter measures and confinements is where are these infections coming from?

The data produced this week blames social activity as being the principal culprit, with 379 outbreaks, accounting for 3,154 coronavirus infections confirmed, the highest percentage (25%) of the 1,526 outbreaks registered in Spain this week.

Carehomes and centres for the disabled have also been badly hit this week, these being the outbreaks which ultimately lead to the most deaths. In centers for people with disabilities there have been 23 outbreaks in the last 7 days with 322 cases, while in the centers for the elderly there have been 137, with 1,877 positives in spite of stringent measures to try and prevent the virus entering these environments.

In the last seven days, 248 family outbreaks affecting members of the same family living in different homes have also been reported, with 1,304 associated cases.

211 outbreaks have been reported in educational centers, in which there have been 1,286 cases, which, according to the health Ministry are all small-scale accounting for 0.8% of the total infections and it is now being accepted that very little contagion is stemming from the educational sector.

In the workplace, 172 new outbreaks have been found with 1,007 cases and 31 have also been reported, with 259 infections, in health centers, most of them in the hospital environment.

These figures only relate to “outbreaks” in which a number of cases are concentrated and does not examine one-to-one transmission.

Restrictions
Which logically leads onto, what is being done about all of this?
The answer is an increase in restrictions right across the country.
Although Spain is now officially under a state of emergency, which has this week been given the official stamp of approval by Congress until 9th May, although the PM will have to report to parliament throughout the process, the regional governments have all been frantically imposing restrictions in a bid to slow down the virus.
Cantabria closes internal borders; click to read

La Rioja extends perimeter confinement until November 29th. Click to read

Bars and restaurants
The major target this week has been the hostelry sector, as the stats above clearly show a link between social gatherings and transmission.

The first region to decree the total closure of all bars and restaurants was Catalunya, which did so on October 16th. Although this caused protests and a great deal of anger, the regional government has held firm and has since been followed by Navarra, Asturias and Melilla, and, from Friday night, Galicia, the Basque Country, Murcia and Castilla y León have all closed down their hostelry sectors completely.
Other regions have currently limited themselves to restrictions; as of midnight tonight, Cantabria only permits the use of exterior terraces, the same applies to Aragón, where terrace capacity is limited to 25% with no internal use allowed at all. La Rioja has limited bar opening to 10 p.m., except in Logroño and Arnedo where they have been closed completely along with interior boundaries due to the high level of cases.

Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Madrid, the Balearic Islands and Extremadura have adopted less restrictive measures, which mainly affect the capacity of the premises and in Ceuta and the Balearic Islands bars must close when curfew begins.

France, England, Greece and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta and Calabria have already ordered the closure of all non-essential shops and the hostelry sector.

Asturias has gone a step further and has the toughest restrictions in Spain and since Wednesday most of the shops have closed.

Catalonia and Castilla y León, have chosen to close shopping centers, arguing that the greatest number of people are concentrated in these centres.

There are external boundary restrictions in place in most regions of the country, aiming to prevent residents from other regions entering. Madrid closed its borders this Friday just for the weekend, which is a local holiday, although this move is largely pointless as all of the surrounding regions have their borders closed. External borders remain open and there is no problem with flights landing and for those travelling to airports and ports.

Some regions have imposed border closures within each municipality and the Murcia Region is amongst them, with full movement restrictions in place. However, many residents have reported that there is only a police presence on the main entry points and many people are slipping un-noticed across the internal municipal boundaries to shop, take olives to the press and attend appointments without seeing head nor hair of a police officer.

Many of the restrictions reach the end of their two week duration on Monday, so a raft of announcements and amendments is likely for the early part of next week.

Lockdown within Spain
The whole question of a full lockdown has been constantly in the news all week.
Several regions are considering the possibility of strengthening the current restrictions on movement and re-implementing the near-total lockdown of March and April, but it will not be decided whether this move is to be allowed at least until next week.

Both Salvador Illa, the Minister for Health, and deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo have stated that the government will not get ahead of itself, and have expressed their determination to combine effective action with prudence.

The regional government of Asturias, in northern Spain, has officially requested a 15-day confinement period and Ceuta has repeatedly requested a full lockdown, as have other regions. The government first insisted that no decision would be made until 9th, when the measures in many regions expire, but as the week has gone on the decision date has been moved to “the 2nd to 3rd week”, with the national government clearly determined to avoid a domestic confinement at all costs.

If the approval is given, then it will be up to the regional governments to implement it, each deciding on their own degree of confinement.

It is extremely difficult to keep up with the amount of restrictions being imposed at any one time, as there are restrictions being announced all the way down to individual municipality level, so if you are planning to travel for any reason, it is highly advisable to seek information from local tourist offices individually.

Riots
The call for stricter lockdowns has been all the louder this week due to the serious rioting and protests which took place last weekend as the curfew was applied.

The protests started on Thursday night last week in Bilbao, when “Covid deniers” held a protest in the city centre, which rapidly disintegrated into a spate of bin burning and violence. By Friday night, the protests had spread to other cities and there were several incidents of extreme aggression in Barcelona, Burgos and Santander. By Saturday evening the same scenarios were played out all over Spain, with angry protests, cars and bins set on fire and confrontation between police and rioters in many cities, including Murcia and Cartagena, as well as Alicante and Valencia, although none as disturbing as the images of protestors breaking into the Decathlon store in Barcelona which provoked widespread and unified condemnation from all political parties including right-wing Vox, who blamed the ultra-right and football supporters.

The response was swift and hard and by the middle of the week there were very few reports of similar incidents. As the week wore on, the main focus of attention turned to the protests called by the hostelry sector against closures, although these were largely peaceful.


Tourism; the UK lockdown
The lockdown theme continued in the tourism sector all week, due to the decision of the UK Government to impose a total lockdown from Thursday, which has affected the ability of British travellers to come to Spain.

The principal point which will adversely affect second home owners in Spain, many of whom had booked flights for the autumn/festive season, is under the travel section of the new restrictions which says: “Overnight stays and holidays away from primary residences will not be allowed. This includes holidays abroad and in the UK. It also means you cannot stay in a second home, if you own one, or staying with anyone you do not live with or are in a support bubble with.”

This is another major body blow for businesses working within tourism or in areas normally popular with foreign tourists seeking a little winter sun, coming on top of restrictions already placed by the Spanish regional governments limiting movement between regional borders in Spain, which has prevented holidaymakers from inland areas of Spain visiting the coast during the autumn, as is normally the case.
Click to read the full story; No Spanish holidays for English residents from Thursday.

This restriction remains in place until 2nd December and may well be extended.

Tourism officials in the Canary Islands are devastated, as thousands of holidays were booked the previous week, following the decision of the British Government to open a safe tourism corridor with the islands; this was invalidated by the ban on English tourists travelling and most of the holidays from England have now been cancelled. Holidays from Scotland and Ireland are still going ahead at the moment.

There seemed to be a glimmer of hope when the Foreign Office issued revised travel conditions for the Canary Islands, but it was subsequently confirmed that the travel corridor was closed. This was followed by official announcements from the airlines cancelling the holidays; read Jet2 cancels Canary Islands flights.

This week there have been dozens of anguished posts on social media from readers who had booked flights to Spain this autumn and didn´t understand that the UK lockdown prevented them from actively travelling to Spain; as the week wore on these posts were replaced by complaints from travellers that their flights to Spanish destinations had been cancelled by the airlines themselves.

Flights that are fully booked are likely to continue in the short-term as the carriers are not obliged to give a refund to passengers now unable to travel, if the plane completes both legs of a scheduled journey. As in most cases, the passengers are cancelling their journeys, the airlines are unlikely to cancel short-term flights, as there will be passengers in Spain returning to England.

However, many flights in December are now being cancelled due to a complete collapse in bookings, with passengers concerned that the English lockdown may continue into December.

The number of flights being cancelled, particularly by Easyjet for the remainder of this year became so intense, that in the Murcia Region, rumours spread that the airport at Corvera was closing down completely for the winter. Aena subsequently denied this rumour (click to read Aena denies airport closure) but there is no doubt that flights are becoming as hard to find as an open bar these days!!!!

However, we are also seeing the problem that there are second-home owners determined to have their holiday in Spain whatever the cost and there has been a spate of postings on social media this week from people who have made it to Spain and reached their holiday homes without being stopped and are triumphantly proclaiming from the rooftops that “it’s all scaremongering, we got here OK.”

We have yet to see whether any of these new arrivals have brought the contagion into the hearts of urbanisations which have managed to escape the worst effects of the virus so far; certainly it was extremely disturbing on Friday to see pictures on social media of smiling groups of friends hugging each other without wearing masks in beachside bars, having met up to enjoy one last meal in their favourite restaurant before the enforced closure this weekend……….as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can´t make it drink. Sufficient warnings have been issued, sufficient measures implemented….

The only thing that can stop this happening is the closure of external borders, but given the current rate of flight cancellations this is being achieved through a natural process at the moment as flights disappear off schedules.

All around us the virus is erupting; France reported 60,000 cases yesterday for the last 24 hour period, Italy has gone into lockdown, Germany has closed shops and businesses, Portugal continued to report record cases and is imposing stricter measures….

This of course, is feeding down into the already devastated hotel and tourism sector. An illustration of this came from the tourism sector in Alicante Province where the association representing the sector confirmed that even the fabled destination of Benidorm was virtually dormant, with 9 out of hotels closed and most bars and restaurants boarded up for the winter including Benidorm Palace, a scenario repeated all along the Spanish Costas this autumn. Click to read: 9 out of 10 hotels now closed in Benidorm.

Here in the Murcia Region the La Manga Club announced that its 5 star hotel would be closing completely for the winter, adding to the woes of apartment owners in las Lomas, who have lost revenue all summer due to the failure to re-open the complex after the spring lockdown. Complicated days lie ahead.
 

Economy
This leads logically onto employment or unemployment.

The Banco de España has warned this week that the nascent economic recovery which began after the first wave of infection has been nipped in the bud, and that the most likely scenario is now the worse of the two contemplated in those it has published previously.

This implies a forecast drop in GDP of 12.6 per cent, and the possibility of economic activity dropping to a lower level than anticipated. In consequence, the deficit could be 7.7 per cent higher than forecast while the debt situation could be considerably worse than the government estimates.

Unemployment figures this week showed that the number of people registered as unemployed in Spain rose during October by a further 49,588, bringing the current total to 3,826,043, but a more graphic illustration of the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the working population of the country is the fact that the figure is more than 20 per cent higher than a year ago after an increase of almost 650,000.

(see unemployment figures for the Region of Murcia and for Alicante Province)

This will undoubtedly lead to social problems, and an illustration of the type of measures starting to appear came from Catalunya this week, where the regional government passed a law to prevent property evictions during Covid pandemic. This applies to investment properties owned by larger entities rather than private individuals who rent out their own apartment, but hopes to limit the social impact of the covid crisis.

Mink
However, economic implications can be much wider and in unexpected quarters and one sector which came sharply into focus on Friday is the mink farming industry in Spain.

Pressure is mounting on the Spanish government to review the situation relating to the 38 mink farms in the north of the country following the decision of the Danish Government to cull its its entire mink pelt production stock and a series of warnings from the World Wildlife Fund about the potential dangers of continuing production here in Spain during the last few months.

More than 50 million mink are farmed for their fur worldwide, but millions have already been culled in Europe following the discovery in the spring that Covid-19 had been transmitted from farm workers to their stock.

During the first wave of the pandemic it became apparent in the Netherlands that the virus could be transmitted from humans to mink and then among the mink population from mink to mink but it is only recently that mink-to-human transmission has definitely been confirmed in Denmark, the result being a mutation which has raised concerns about the potential effectivity of a future vaccine.

The Danish administration has decided to cull all animals at the country’s 1,500 or so mink fur farms (a total of between 13 and 19 million mink, according to different reports) and has confined the population in the affected areas of Jutland, the landmass which borders with Germany.

The sector is far smaller in Spain with a total of 38 mink farms, of which 31 are in Galicia and the remainder in Aragón, the Basque Country, Castilla y León and Valencia, but even so these concerns produce 750,000 pelts a year.

In July the regional government in Aragón reacted to the worries of mink-borne Covid transmission by ordering the slaughter of 92,700 minks on a farm in La Puebla de Valverde, in the province of Teruel, after a series of tests carried out over a two-month period confirmed contagion. This co-incided with the confirmation of human to mink and mink to mink transmission in the Netherlands, where by June almost 600,000 mink had been culled using carbon monoxide gas after workers and mink in their care were found to be covid positive. At that point there were suspicions that the virus could be transmitted from mink back to humans, but there was no scientific proof.

The government subsequently ordered the culling of all mink in the Netherlands,speeding up a plan to end mink farming in the country by 2024.

This longer-term plan had been drawn up in the face of concerns over animal welfare and the ethics of fur farming, and in Galicia these issues were raised again in the regional parliament this week as the BNG party called for “early warning” Covid detections systems to be made mandatory at mink farms. Regional MP Luís Bará cited the cases of Denmark and the Netherlands and highlighted the fact that animal welfare rules are in place at mink farms everywhere in Spain except in Galicia, despite the fact that 90 per cent of the country’s production is in the region.

As long ago as June the WWF demanded that the Spanish government close down all mink farms immediately, describing them as a “biological time bombs”.

In July the Spanish mink breeders’ association accepted the scientific evidence that animals were becoming infected with Covid-19 but not that reverse transmission was taking place, and in August the WWF again demanded that the example of the Netherlands be followed in this country.

By October, the WWF turned the screw still further by warning the regional governments involved in these regions of Spain directly of the Covid risk of mink farms, demanding extensive testing and the closure of the businesses in the sector, but nothing has yet been done.

The Spanish Government has failed to make any public response to the current situation and no restrictions have been placed on the entry of Danish citizens travelling to Spain.
Click for full article which discusses the mutation and scientific response in more detail

Science
There is such a huge volume of scientific work underway to help understand this virus and work out how to deal with it and Spain is involved in many research and development projects. A couple of interesting examples this week include:

Osteoporosis medications could offer 40 per cent protection against Covid says Barcelona-based study: A study at the Hospital del Mar, the Universidad Pompeu Fabra and the Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili in Barcelona, concludes that certain medications used to combat osteoporosis may also offer protection against coronavirus and reduce the risk of contracting it by between 30 and 40 per cent. This is the conclusion drawn from an analysis of 2,000 osteoporosis, arthrosis and fibromyalgia patients and their relationship with Covid-19, and specifically of the effects of treatments such as denosumab, zoledronate and calcium. Click to read the article

Murcia scientists test Covid traps for early detection of the virus in public spaces. aA team from the Bio-Sanitary Research Institute of Murcia (IMIB) has developed a new device which they call a “Covid trap”, and have shown its effectiveness in a test performed in a hospital rather than in an isolated laboratory.

The trap consists of a series of different surfaces contained in boxes and protected by a plastic mesh so that people cannot touch them. According to an article published in the Science of Total Environment magazine, traps placed over a metre above patients diagnosed with coronavirus were found to retain the virus on two kinds of surface (polypropylene and glass), demonstrating the existence of airborne transmission.

The implication is that such traps could be used for the early detection of the virus in enclosed or public spaces such as schools, medical centres or indoor leisure establishments such as cinemas, theatres and restaurants, making mass testing unnecessary in many cases and avoiding the need for them to be closed down. Click to read

Valencia coronavirus mutation will not be resistant to vaccine. Scientists analysing the spread of the coronavirus in Europe are now asserting that a mutant strain of the infection which is currently spreading throughout the continent originated in Valencia in late May or early June, but at the same time other researchers are expressing confidence that this “new” strain will not be detrimental to the effectiveness of the vaccines which are being worked on. It has been established that the particular strain which first appeared in Valencia and among agricultural workers in Aragón accounts for around 29 per cent of cases in Europe, while the second most widespread is one which originated in France and Belgium and which is now responsible for 22 per cent of cases. However, it is quite normal for viruses to mutate frequently, and the SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, is relatively stable with new mutations around twice a month. These mutationsdo not affect the basic structure of the virus or how it works.

In an online interview Dr Hodcroft, heading up the research team, informed that the findings of her team seem to indicate that the spreading of the Valencia mutation was most likely caused by international travellers during the summer, and that the number of new cases began to rise again in Spain before it did so in other countries, with the exception of Belgium. With the benefit of hindsight, she identifies a premature relaxation of travel rules throughout Europe after governments mistakenly believed that the arrival of the “new normality” coincided with an “endless summer” in which travel became feasible again. Click to read full article

Coronavirus vaccine for Spain expected to be widely available by next March. AstraZeneca forecast a “horrific” winter but a return to relative normality by next summer. The latest news from AstraZeneca, the UK-based company whose coronavirus vaccine is currently in an advanced stage of testing, is that the product could be widely distributed by the end of March 2021. Click to read full article.

A final Covid-related light note for the Spanish news

Covid Caganers for a Catalan Christmas…Donald Trump or Boris Johnson are both available with or without a mask: The “caganer” is a tradition which is thought to have started in Catalunya, and which involves a figure which for over 200 years has been included in traditional cribs or nativity scenes. It has spread to other regions of Spain as well: in Murcia the figure is known as a “cagón”, and elsewhere as a “cagador”, and similar figures exist in Portugal and southern Italy. The “Pooping man” is an essential element of many Spanish nativities and this year the selection of figures on offer include many well-known public figures, some available with or without a covid mask…..

Murcia

On Friday 16th October the Murcia Region had 27,381 cases. On Friday 23rd October the reported figure was 31,378, on Friday 30th this figure had risen to 36,601, and by Friday  6th November the total had reached 42,088 so this is a rise in the total number of cases of  5,487 in the last 7 days (compared to a rise of 5,223 last week).

Case numbers have started to rise more sharply towards the end of the week, the figure of 1002 new positives on Friday breaking the 1,000 barrier for the first time ever in the region. It’s easy to lose sense of the scale of this second wave in Murcia when the figures are so high day after day, but to put it into context, remember that at the end of the first wave in June Murcia had only diagnosed 1652 cases in the whole of the period between March and June, so the current figure of 12,141 active cases is very worrying for a region the size of Murcia and 1,002 in one 24 hour period is high for our level of population.

The positivity level of the PCR tests taken in the last 24 hour period, was 17.5 % positivity, so multiply that out and imagine that almost 2 out of every 10 people walking around in the streets could conceivably be positive and not know it, and that gives an idea of how widespread the transmission rate currently is.

Patients are recovering all the time and being removed from the number of active cases, so by the end of the week, the region had 12,141 active cases and 27,852 recoveries to date.

Hospitalisations:
The number of patients hospitalised at the end of the week is 595, a record high, and has risen from 514 at the end of last week. There are 96 patients in intensive care, a slight fall of 4 patients by the end of the week after the total hit 100 on Wednesday.

This level of figures is prompting concern in the regional health authority which has now made the decision to activate a contingency plan which proved unnecessary during the first wave of the pandemic in the spring.

On Wednesday the Murcia government announced that an emergency plan to create 500 extra hospital beds would be activated, in response to the overstretching of resources at the hospitals of the Region.

This action would bring the number of hospital beds in the Region of Murcia up to just over 3,000 and almost treble the number of intensive care beds from 120 to 350.

On Thursday it was announced that non-urgent surgical procedures have been suspended in two hospitals in the regional capital in order to amplify the capacity for covid care – the Reina Sofía and the Morales Meseguer – and in recent weeks extra wings and wards have been opened up. So critical is the situation in the Morales Meseguer, for example, that there have been up to 22 Covid patients in critical condition at the same time but only 18 intensive care beds available, and a similar shortage of space is reported in the Reina Sofía.

In the largest hospital in Murcia, the Arrixaca in El Palmar, there are currently 99 Covid patients but efforts are being made to maintain heart surgery and neurosurgery; as a result, “overflow” patients are being sent to the Santa Lucía in Cartagena and the Los Arcos del Mar Menor hospital in San Javier.

And the situation is not just confined to the capital; in Yecla, the Virgen del Castillo has 21 covid patients, four times the number a week ago, when there were only 5 patients. Its maximum limit is 30 patients. The situation at the Los Arcos hospital, in the Mar Menor, is also amplifying, with 41 hospitalized on the wards, and six in ICU, with a maximum capacity of 57, space which is now being filled with transfers from the Murcia hospitals.

Fatalities
These have risen from 315 to 389 this week, so there have been 74 deaths this week, the highest figure for a week since the pandemic began. Again, the region only reported 150 deaths in the whole of the first wave, so this total has already been duplicated in this second wave and exceeded. For the last three consecutive days the fatalities have been in double figures, Thursday being the blackest day with 16 deaths. We were warned that the sharp rise in cases in the region would translate into deaths and this is now the case.

Number of new cases in the last 7 days:
By municipality on Wednesday: Note, the first figure shown is the actual number of cases diagnosed in the last 7 days, the second is the IA rate for the last 7 days (number of cases per 100,000 of population. This is ONLY for the last 7 days, so the actual number of active cases in each municipality is higher than shown here.
Abanilla 10/163( This means 10 cases in the last 7 days and an IA rate of 163)
Abarán 42/324
Águilas 41/116
Albudeite 16/1165
Alcantarilla 221/525
Aledo 10/978
Los Alcázares 49/303
Alguazas 61/632
Alhama de Murcia 135/611
Archena 148/766
Beniel 29/256
Blanca 32/489
Bullas 40/346
Calasparra 25/245
Campos del Río 8/394
Caravaca de la Cruz 189/733
Cartagena 430/200
Cehegín 94/627
Ceutí 70/593
Cieza 112/320
Fortuna 35/346
Fuente Álamo 95/572
Jumilla 175/683
Librilla 19/358
Lorca 243/257
Lorquí 18/252
Mazarrón 87/270
Molina de Segura 259/360
Moratalla 80/1020
Mula 40/236
Murcia 1873/413
Ojós 2/400
Pliego 9/233
Puerto Lumbreras 32/207
Ricote 17/1344
San Javier 161/495
San Pedro del Pinatar 91/357
Santomera 35/216
Torre Pacheco 176/493
Las Torres de Cotillas 107/498
Totana 164/512
Ulea 2/228
La Unión 51/252
Villanueva del Río Segura 31/1065
Yecla 198/575
Those from other regions diagnosed in Murcia 111
Total 5873 . Acumulated IA rate in the last 7 days: 393. IA rate for the last 14 days 778.

The internal ban on travel between municipalities remains in place, as does the external border restrictions ban. Questions and answers document about the border closures in Murcia, click here if you have any queries about the restrictions in Murcia.

The additional restrictions in Beniel, Bullas, Ceutí, Cieza, Lorquí, Torre Pacheco, Archena, Abanilla, Fortuna and Totana remaiN in place. Click here to read about the additional restrictions in these specific municipalities.

Closure of hostelry establishments:
All of the border restrictions remain in place, as does the curfew from 23:00 every night. The Murcian Government has this week added the closure of all bars and restaurants as mentioned in the main Spanish news, to the restrictions in place, and the closure came into place on Friday evening.

There was significant opposition from the hostelry sector who immediately took to the streets and started to protest.

Following the prolonged closure of hostelries during the spring there have been dire warnings from within the sector that many of the 9,000 or so businesses affected in Murcia could be forced to close for good, directly affecting 35,000 workers and as many as 20,000 more whose livelihoods depend on bars and restaurants. Juan José López of the Hostecar hostelries association in Cartagena claims that “we have been unable to work for almost a year” and describes the closure of bars and restaurants as of midnight on Friday (although takeaway meals can continue to be offered) as “disproportionate”, adding that the figures show that the incidence rate of the pandemic is lower in coastal municipalities than in inland areas.

This echoes a widespread sentiment that the hospitality sector is somehow being held to blame unfairly for the virulence of the second wave of Covid, a theory which bar and restaurants owners of course deny. But the regional government’s Covid coordinator, Jaime Pérez, estimates that 25 per cent of all contagion takes place during leisure activities - including social meals and gatherings in bars - where people remove their facemasks, and that these infections then generate further contagion in family homes.

Closing bars and restaurants is one of a dwindling number of options open to the Government before finally being forced to lock us down in own homes again, something everyone is desperate to avoid. At least this way we can still shop, can still exercise, enjoy sports, go to the markets and other businesses can keep trading, many of whom have lost equal amounts of revenue to the bars and restaurants throughout this crisis.

By Thursday negotiations had begun with the hostelry associations and finally, on Saturday morning, aid packages were announced which would compensate businesses forced to close for the two week stoppage.

Aid of 3,000 euros will be paid to businesses employing 1-5 workers, 4,000 for businesses of 6 to 19 employees, 7,500 for those with 20 to 49 workers and 10,000 for those with more than 50 employees.

The debate over bar and restaurant closures is, and will continue to be, a heated one, and it is clear that no-one will enjoy the sight of the shutters remaining down at these establishments until the situation improves significantly. But it is worth remembering that many other business sectors are being heavily hit by the pandemic and are receiving no aid whatsoever.

Bars and restaurants are just the top of the supply chain, and sectors such as the wineries which sell their wines to the hostelry sector have reported significant losses of sales and have gone into this harvest with millions of litres of wine unsold from the previous harvest. The same situation exists in the olive oil sector, and in many businesses servicing the hostelry sector. Clothing retailers are closing down left, right and centre, several major groups of shoe shops for example, already closing down in the region, which will again feed down to loss of sales for shoe manufacturers here, and on down the chain into the tanneries. Tourism has been badly battered. Tour guides have had no work since the cruise ships stopped docking, even tourist attractions such as the main managed Roman attractions in Cartagena have been forced to close and lay their staff off as there are no tourists. Souvenir shops are on their knees, those who service tourists with bicycle hire, boat trips, transfers....all of us who advertise their products have lost their advertising and their revenue……there are tens of thousands of businesses adversely affected and none of us are receiving a cent in the way of aid or compensation.

If in doubt, talk to your asesor as there are various financing schemes available.

Other Murcia Covid stories:
 

Campaign to dispose of masks thoughtfully; Environmental timebomb. Disposable masks take up to 400 years to decompose. Click to read

Regional health service closes Alhama agricultural processor due to covid outbreak. Click to read

Cieza mosque fined for exceeding attendance limits: Click to read

Murcia government offers 2 million euros in aid to tourism businesses: Click to read
 

Other news:

Fertilizer ban within 1500 metres of the Mar Menor comes into effect
Monday was a red-letter day for the lagoon as new legislation restricting farming practices close to the shore came into force.

Despite having been passed in July it was not until Monday 2nd November that the “Ley del Mar Menor” took effect, banning the use of fertilizers within 1,500 metres of the coast of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon. Within this “green belt” only ecological and sustainable agriculture is now permitted, the intention being to reduce the amount of nutrients and other material washed into the Mar Menor by floodwater and natural drainage from the farmland of the Campo de Cartagena.

This in turn, the theory runs, will help to prevent the proliferation of the “algal bloom” which turned the water of the lagoon a greenish colour in 2016 and which has threatened to return on numerous occasions since, particularly after the torrential storms which flooded the area in late 2019 and early 2020. Ever since the episode of 2016 the need for legislation to protect the Mar Menor has been agreed on, but the details of this legislation have been fiercely disputed by the different parties involved including political parties, water infrastructure authorities, crop farmers and other agriculturalists, biologists, fishermen and a host of others.

In this context it was not until December last year that the regional government of Murcia finally passed its Mar Menor legislation, banning fertilizers from all areas within 500 metres of the shoreline, and now that fertilizer-free fringe has been made three times wider under the terms of the law which was passed in July.

Other measures are being introduced gradually according to timeframes specified in the legislation, and this week also marks the introduction of one which specifies that no more than 170 kilos of nitrogen per hectare per year can be used within the 1,500-metre limit. At the same time a 3-year ban is in force on the installation of new greenhouses and the opening of new livestock farming concerns in an effort to slow the growth of a sector which everyone recognizes has, in the long term, been detrimental to water quality in the Mar Menor.

Similarly, no new building projects are to be allowed during the same 3-year period, and by the end of this year limits on crop rotation will come into force.

This summer the lagoon narrowly escaped predicted disaster and the algal bloom many thought would return across the whole of the Mar Menor was held at bay. This is mainly believed to be due to the flow of water from the Mediterranean after golas in the far north of the lagoon were dredged and widened.

Step forward for infrastructure project to reduce flooding in Los Alcázares:

The council of Los Alcázares, which for years has been pressuring the CHS and regional Government to implement practical measures which will help to reduce the possibility of flooding in the town following episodes of particularly heavy rain, has welcomed the announcement that the 1.06 million project to amplify the D-7 drainage canal run by the CHS water infrastructures is finally entering the adjudication phase.

The channel is too small to cope with the volume of water which can flow down from areas such as Torre Pacheco in a Gota Fría, and the water literally bottlenecks at the entry to the channel flooding the main carriageway alongside the Mar Menor.

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