After the end of the state of alarm, the provisional balance of the effects of the health disaster in Barcelona arrives. In the health, lives and economy of its citizens. The city council was monitoring it and, despite the fact that some data will take months to become official, it has already produced a first x-ray of the crisis and its effects in a city where 15.1% of residents have spent solitary confinement. A figure that reaches 31.8% of those over 65, even more affected in cases of lack of internet.
Regular surveys (150 a day) reveal that an average of 10.5% of citizens have had symptoms of covid-19, and that the dead in Barcelona exceed 3,400, according to an estimate. There were very few symptomatic patients with access to a test, and even in May (when the survey ended) this figure rose to only 18.4% of cases.
He Barcelona State 2020 (disseminated as an extraordinary advance) glosses local evolution from a beginning of the year “with economic dynamism“despite the” slowdown in the growth rate “, even the paralysis that has resulted in more than 210.00 locals affected by erte, 24.8% of which correspond to the sector of the hostelry, while 16.8% are Commerce.
Economic concern, however, has become the main concern of Barcelona residents by May (41.8% of respondents), because in the weeks before, the concern was health. However, it is striking that little more than half of the residents consider that the experience of confinement has not been hard, although this average is smoothed by the data corresponding to the de-escalation phases.
Mobile data
The city council has used new techniques, such as data from mobile phone companies, to measure some aspects. In other cases, they are official statistics, or respondents’ responses. Sometimes, knowing that this is not scientific data, feasible estimates have been used. This is currently the case with deaths, where due to the different procedures and sources there is still a miscount. But the consistory has calculated the average of deaths in the last decade to compare it with that of this period, to conclude that the excess deaths on June 20 is 3,434 people, attributable to the virus.
The voice of the interviewees also reflects that a 15.1% of Barcelonans passed the confinement alone, while almost a third of those over 65 years went through that trance. The most common confinement situation was being confined with another person, in 34.1% of cases. In 27% of households there were more than four people.
This sociological radiography also introduces the incidence of new technologies. Only 4.8% did not have internet, although the figure rises to 17.4% in the older age group, which may exacerbate isolation. The personal situation (as the council had already advanced) also varied greatly depending on the neighborhoods, since some nuclei of Nou Barris, Horta-Guinardó, Sant Andreu and Sants-Montjuïc had contagion rates higher than 713 per 100,000 inhabitants. on average in the city, which was especially hard in areas with smaller floors, or more precarious work patterns.
Economic legacy
Fear for their own health and that of their loved ones was followed by the direct effect on the economy. A certain downhill slope began before the state of alarm, with the effects of the cancellation of the world mobile phone congress in February. The closed data only reaches the fall of the START local of the first quarter, of 3.8%, although it is expected that at the end of the year the bump will oscillate between 6.4% and 11.6% in the negative.
The municipal report emphasizes that not even the worst of the crisis had seen such gloomy prospects as those of the remainder of the year, according to the data provided by the AMB Business Climate Survey. The constitution of commercial companies also fell by 30.8% until April, along with FOR HIM they reach 210,426 workers and 53,738 jobs are lost compared to February. The unemployment figure is fattened in one year by 22,700 people, reaching 90,528 in May.
The situation has particularly affected the self-employed who in almost half of the cases were unable to work during confinement. Among the privileged group (68% of respondents) who have not seen their employment situation changed, almost three quarters have worked from home.
Precisely, many of these labor scissors go hand in hand with the disappearance of foreign tourism. Barcelona started the year gaining travelers (1.4 million hotel guests between January and March). But with data accumulated as of April, the drop in tourists who stayed overnight represented 46.2% less than in the same period last year. And it will be worse when it is counted until June. In the case of cruise passengers, the decrease until April is 78.3%, while airport users from January to May have dropped 58.6%.
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