San Isidro confined. A mourning Madrid with 8,700 dead in the region exchanges donuts for masks and chotis grab by social distance. May 15 has become a tribute to the people in their fight against the pandemic. The Prairie and the Vistillas are deserted and watched by dozens of police officers with the thermometer with which to take the temperature of a capital that remains under alarm and pending whether it goes from phase 0 to phase 1 of the de-escalation. “Few sadder San Isidro we could imagine”, the mayor has recognized in an act in which the Medal of Honor has been awarded to all Madrid residents, a “medal that does not make distinctions between heroes”. Mónica López, internist at the Ramón y Cajal hospital, has picked it up on behalf of everyone.
López, 44, caught the covid-19 in early March. Three weeks later he returned to continue standing up to the pandemic. With his “rojiblanco heart” he assures that “we will win this match at covid”. She has represented the more than three million people from Madrid, especially those who have lost their lives or, like her, have become infected. In his speech, he reminded those who “have all rowed together”, especially his companions, the elderly, families, neighbors, and even the non-Covid-19 patients who have understood that the priority these weeks is the pandemic.
The internist has shared the limelight with the Nobel Prize for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, in charge of glossing the “heroic deed” of the people of Madrid with a laudatio in which he has described as a “medieval plague” the pandemic that Madrilenians face “despite being so poorly equipped for it”. Madrid is the city of “freedom,” said Vargas Llosa, who has highlighted the role of health workers and speaks of a cosmopolitan city that “has incorporated its way of being into the world.” [Lea el discurso íntegro de Vargas llosa].
As a memory of this date, there is a monument in honor of those killed by the virus. It is a cauldron in the Plaza de Cibeles. The first mayor and the vice mayor deposit a laurel wreath flanked by two gala guards while a cellist plays The cant of the ocells (The song of the birds), by Pau Casals. All four wear a mask. In the background, the black ribbon that hangs from the Puerta de Alcalá.
They have attended the institutional act, by the City Council, in addition to the mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida (PP); the vice mayor, Begoña Villacís (Cs); the spokesperson for the Más Madrid group, Marta Higueras; from the PP, Andrea Levy; from the PSOE, Pepu Hernández; and the deputy of Vox, Pedro Fernández, since the owner, Javier Ortega Smith, remains admitted. Also attending is the president of the Community, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; the vice president of the Community, Ignacio Aguado (Cs), the president of the PP, Pablo Casado, and several former mayors of the city such as Juan Barranco, Alberto Ruiz Gallardón and José María Álvarez del Manzano.
Almeida has had a special memory of the health workers, represented this day by Mónica López, the elderly, the workers who fight the pandemic on the front line and the ten municipal employees who have lost their lives to the virus. “The people of Madrid have set an example again.” “It is the medal that has generated the most consensus,” said Villacís, for the “exemplary, responsible and caring behavior” of Madrid residents during this crisis. The representative of Ciudadanos has appreciated the role that the municipal opposition is playing to achieve unity.
“Salud, Salud y Salud,” is what he asks of Saint Rita Maestre, deputy spokesperson for Más Madrid. Without wanting to comment on judicial aspects, Maestre highlights the “delay” that Madrid has with respect to other cities in the opening of public spaces. Almeida has been summoned on May 23 by a judge to testify for having the parks closed after a court has admitted a complaint for processing.
The city is still pending this Friday if it changes phase in the de-escalation process. The socialist spokesman, Pepu Hernández, trusts the decision of the “experts” and asks San Isidro to “delegate to the angels, who are the toilets” to soon have a vaccine that will placate the virus.
The controversy over the protests in the Salamanca neighborhood, especially in the surroundings of Calle Núñez de Balboa, in which the safety distances have not always been respected, has also been present at the institutional event. Dozens of neighbors have been out on the street with pans against the Pedro Sánchez government since last Sunday. The Government delegate, José Manuel Franco, calls for the “rules” to be respected over “ideologies” and insisted on fighting the “irresponsibility of those who do not comply with the laws” in any neighborhood.
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