ARCHIVED - Restrictions for Christmas in Spain; travel permitted between regions and groups of 10

The agreed measures allow travel to visit family only but NO leisure trips, with regional perimeter closures to be decided by the individual regions

Travel will be permitted between December 23rd and January 6th across Spain, but ONLY for family visits.

Citizens must adequately justify that they are travelling for, among other reasons, meeting with "relatives or close friends" and are not permitted to travel for leisure or holiday purposes

The number of people permitted to meet rises from six to 10 only on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day

University students should begin to take precautions 10 days before

The elderly are permitted to leave residences and care homes to go to a "single address" where they must remain within their family bubble.

The final agreement prohibits all sporting events, including the popular San Silvestre races, and recommends "static cavalcades" and "virtual bells for New Year celebrations and Three Kings.

After failing to reach agreement last week, the national Government and the 17 regional governments have finally approved the Christmas restrictions plan for the forthcoming festive season on Wednesday evening, although several regions are reportedly still unhappy about some of the points included.

Madrid and Catalunya, in particular, maintain that the restriction prohibiting movement between regions of Spain between the 23rd December and 6th January is "unworkable" and refused to participate in the voting process, saying that it would be impossible to differentiate between those planning to visit the family and those planning to travel to holiday homes.

These restrictions will not be published in the BOE, and depend on individuals acting with responsibility rather than having any legal basis should they be ignored.

The regional governments will be left to apply them.

Mobility between regions:
The principal point within the Christmas restrictions agreed between the 17 regional authorities and the national Spanish Government for the period between 24th December and January 6th relates to inter-regional travel.

The Ministry will permit trips between the autonomous regions this Christmas, although exclusively to visit relatives and with many limitations. The autonomous regions will continue to exercise control over their own regional borders and will maintain the perimeter confinements of their regions between December 23rd and January 6th, except "for trips to autonomous communities or cities that are the usual place of residence of relatives or relatives of the displaced person ”. The text vetoes any purely tourist or leisure trips, such as trips to second homes outside the community or trips to the coast or the holiday areas in the interior of the country. What the document does not establish is what mechanism will be used to ensure that the destination of any journey is to visit family and not to go to a holiday apartment.

The plan only details that it will be "the autonomous communities and autonomous cities that will make effective the limitation of entry and exit in the autonomous communities and cities." So although a regional government may decide to maintain its perimeter border closed, policing that decision will be almost impossible; as residents who have already lived through several months of restrictions know all too well, people are still driving to their holiday apartments on the Murcia coastline from Madrid, are still crossing external regional boundaries as well as internal municipal boundaries to shop and go to bars, and people are successfully driving through France or flying from the UK and reaching holiday homes without seeing head nor hair of a police officer once in Spain.

Regional governments must also still decide whether they maintain their perimeter closures between the 9th/10th December until the 24th December; in many cases this has still not been done.

So the first point is unenforceable and nobody is going to take a blind bit of notice of the restrictions unless measures are properly enforced. Given that police resources are already exhausted after months of additional work caused by covid, depleted as officers are themselves ill and having to quarantine due to covid and that officers are human as well and will want time to be with their own families, the chances of this being properly enforced are extremely low.

Maximum group size
The regional governments have been fairly militant about this point, holding out for the group size to be 10 people, not 6 as the government originally proposed due to the size of Spanish families.

10 people will be allowed to gather for Christmas lunches and dinners on December 24th, 25th and 31st, 2020 and January 1st, in 2021. The Health proposal does not clarify whether or not those 10 people include minors. Again, this is a point which the regional authorities must decide and implement; some wanted children excluded from the calculation of the 10 attendees, and others wanted them included. The national health ministry wants the 10 to include children.

Again, we have the same problem that actually controlling compliance with this regulation is going to be a nightmare for the police, and regional authorities must enforce this themselves.

At all other times group sizes are limited to 6.

Elderly allowed to leave carehomes:
The elderly will be permitted to leave carehomes and residencias in order to stay with their family for Christmas, but must stay within one address and maintain a stable coexistence bubble.
"Upon readmission, it is advisable to carry out a diagnostic test for active infection and in the days after readmission, surveillance and prevention measures will be taken to the extreme," says the text.

Curfew
The Health Ministry extends the current curfews until 1.30 am on Christmas and New Year's Eve. The regional governments can change this for their own regions should they choose to do so.
The text warns that the extension of the curfew is "only to allow the return home." "In no case will this time extension be used to travel to different social gatherings," the resolution clarifies.

University students; It is recommended that they take extreme prevention measures and limit their social life 10 days before traveling home and that, once with their families, they respect family bubbles and avoid interactions in closed spaces.

Events: Mass events between December 23rd and January 6th, in particular the parades of the Three Kings, will not be permitted to take place as normal this year and neither will the traditional end-of-year races (San Silvestres) or other large sporting events.
The celebration of religious events will be permitted, observing the existing restrictions on venue capacity, but the Ministry recommends the use of telematic or television services as an alternative to choirs or presencial services, and recommends, using pre-recorded music, avoiding physical displays of devotion or tradition (kisses, contact on images, sculptures, etc) and minimising any religious events which involve any contact such as Christmas Mass.

The plan also aims to reinforce the 6M message at Christmas: Mask (use of a mask as long as possible), Manos, hands (frequent hand washing), Metro (maintenance of physical distance), Maximize ventilation and outdoor activities, Minimize number of contacts; and "me quedo en casa, I stay at home if I show symptoms, am diagnosed as positive or have contact with a covid positive."