MADRID – On Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez made a specially inserted television speech in which he did not announce any new corona measures but did warn the residents of Spain against the second wave as the situation is becoming increasingly difficult. The government is also getting more and more pressure from the autonomous regions not to wait any longer with a new state of emergency that must be accompanied by a national curfew.
According to the official corona figures, Spain now has 1,046,132 people who have tested positive for corona since the start of the crisis, but as the prime minister himself pointed out, the real figure is much higher and he speaks of more than 3 million infected since the start of the corona. crisis in Spain.
After a partly unsuccessful meeting between the Ministry of Health and the regional authorities of the autonomous regions about a possible state of emergency to be declared in order to be legally ready for a national curfew, there are several autonomous regions that want the Spanish government to stop waiting and immediately one state of emergency enters.
That will include asked through the autonomous regions of the Basque Country, Castile and León, Extremadura, Catalonia, Asturias and the autonomous city of Melilla. With a state of emergency (estado de alarma) one has legal support to take measures such as a curfew (toque de queda) or other measures to limit the mobility of citizens such as a municipal or regional lockdown (cierre perimetral).
In Spain, the regional authorities of the 17 autonomous regions and 2 autonomous cities are competent to take corona measures related to their own autonomous region. This sometimes makes it very unclear and the central Spanish government has to find agreements with 17 regional governments.
The first (and so far only) state of emergency during the pandemic was declared on March 14 this year, then renewed six times every 15 days to end on June 21. After that, after a de-escalation process, Spain entered the so-called new normal or new normalcy but that did not last long.
The number of infected people quickly increased in the province of Lerida in Catalonia and in the province of Huesca in Aragón thanks to, among other things, the seasonal workers (who live in dire conditions and have to work to pick fruit), after which these autonomous regions had to take the first measures.
After that, the coronavirus spread further across the country, but after the summer, the number of infections and positive test persons rose rapidly in Catalonia, Madrid, Aragón, Navarra, La Rioja, Castile and León and many other areas in Spain.
Now regional measures are being taken everywhere, lockdowns are taking place in cities, areas, provinces or entire regions such as Navarra and La Rioja. In other places, the catering industry is closed and a flexible form of a curfew is being devised, a means to slow down the number of infections and with which the economy is not so seriously affected.
However, the question is how long can these partial measures be continued, which seem to be barely working or not at all. How country is it possible to wait with a next ‘estado de alarma’, which may not be as intense as the one in March for the time being, but which will have an impact on social life and the economy.
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