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article_detail
Date Published: 14/08/2020
ARCHIVED - Spanish Health Ministry denies claims that Spain will impose new lockdown on Sept. 18th
A Costa del Sol newspaper claimed that Spain was about to enter a second lockdown
Social media is a frustrating feature of modern communications, as though it can be useful for the rapid spread of information, it’s also riddled with mis-information, some of it potentially very damaging.
This week, a Costa del Sol printed newspaper claimed that Spain was about to go into lockdown again on September 18th, a claim which was re-published in national media, setting off a bit of a panic. This office answered multiple emails and messages from concerned readers, surprised that we had not published this important news, and informed them that the article was not based on any announcements yet made anywhere by the Spanish Government.
Normally, mis-information like this stays within the confines of social media, but in this case a journalist asked Spain’s Director of the Co-ordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, who presents the national Covid figures at the weekday press briefings held by the Ministry of Health about the piece.
He was somewhat surprised by the question and answered that: "In no forum or meeting in which I have participated has the subject even been mentioned, there are many hoaxes that run, I do not know with what intention; if at some point this has to be raised relating to the evolution of the epidemic, then obviously it will be raised and the decisions made that have to be made, "he said.
He accepted that Spain is experiencing an increase in cases and in some communities there is a certain degree of community transmission, but maintained that those most affected by the outbreaks, such as Catalonia and Aragon, are stabilizing and even decreasing.
“We have to learn to live with the virus, “ he said, “ whether we want to or not we have to learn to live alongside the virus, at least until we have a vaccine, “ he said and “learn to go back to social, educative and work-related activities in a different fashion.”
He talked about the current problem with schools:
“if we have to close schools, classrooms or groups of pupils because the evolution of the virus requires this, then we will have to do this.”
“If it’s necessary to go one step further and close the schools in an area or province, or all of Spain then this will be evaluated, “ he said.
So he’s not ruling out the possibility that further measures will be evaluated should the need arise, but is denying that any such plans currently exist based on the existing situation.
Autonomous regions taking their own decisions
Many non-Spanish speakers are still failing to understand that the complicated political and administrative structure of Spanish Government gives considerable power to each of the 17 regional autonomous governments, each of whom controls their own regional health service and runs their own region via an elected regional parliament.
The state of emergency was declared in order to try and clamp down on the spread of Covid, reacting to an immediate and extraordinary situation and to co-ordinate an emergency response and was done in full collaboration with the regional governments, each extension agreed with the regions and negotiated through a series of specific conditions and compromises.
The regional governments are extremely reluctant to even consider a return to that situation and continue to work at a local level adapting their decisions to suit the particular circumstances in their own regions.
There are now so many outbreaks and so many different restrictions across the regions, that unifying them all would be an almost impossible task and the virus is evolving in each region in a completely different fashion depending on the geography of the region its climate, what type of activity is undertaken there and the demographics of its population.
By now, the economic impact of a hard lockdown has also made the prospect of another across-the-board lockdown a remote possibility and the growing realisation is that we all just have to accept where we are, work together in order to limit the spread of the virus and find ways in which businesses can co-exist with the virus until vaccines become available.
It is certainly possible that some regions will impose harsh restrictions this autumn based on their own situations and in the full understanding of the economic implications at a regional level, indeed on Thursday the Basque Country said publicly that it was considering such a move due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the region, but this will be the decision of the regional government and not the national.
Regions can request that the Spanish Government put them into a localised State of Alarm/ Emergency as the Spanish Constitution does not permit the confinement of the population by any other mechanism. Judges can grant specific movement restrictions for an individual or small group of individuals if the council/govt./health authority requests it through a judicial mechanism, but only the national government can issue a large-scale order through the state of emergency mechanism and will only do that in cases of extreme need.
Lockdowns/mobility restrictions will be generally highly localised, with specific restrictions relating to buildings, companies, individual businesses or residential areas and courts have issued dozens of such orders across the country during the last 2 months.
What is happening is that the regional governments are looking at the initiatives developed in one region and adapting them for use in another based on how successful the measures seem to be.
The imposition of masks was one such example; Catalonia started a wave which within a week had spread across Spain and was adopted by all regions except the Canary Islands and Madrid. Madrid finally succumbed last week and today the Canary Islands has announced that it too, will be imposing the mandatory use of masks in public areas as well as limiting group sizes, limiting nocturnal leisure activities due to the growing number of cases in the islands and imposing a smoking ban in public places.Some regions have already announced that they will follow this initiative,whereas others have said they won´t and others have called for the Spanish government to implement this restriction at a national level.
Other measures are being announced daily; on Thursday for example the Basque Country has said that it is studying re-implementing harsh measures at a regional level similar to those during the state of emergency having registered 569 new cases in the last 24 hours.
Navarra has today said that it is limiting the number of people allowed to attend religious services and events such as weddings.
The Balearic Islands is planning large-scale tests in the worst-affected areas and is limiting the size of groups allowed to gather after registering 228 new cases in the last 24 hours.
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