First it was Euskadi and then Extremadura, Asturias, La Rioja, Catalonia, Melilla, Navarra, Castilla-La Mancha and Cantabria, to which the Valencian Community, as confirmed by the autonomous president himself, Ximo Puig, in his interview in ‘Hora 25’.
With this, there are already nine communities and an autonomous city those that request the Government to declare the state of alarm to face the increase in COVID-19 infections with all the legal guarantees that it offers. The Executive, for its part, does not rule out convening an extraordinary Council of Ministers this weekend.
He president in functions of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés, has appeared this Friday at a press conference to request the declaration of the state of alarm and, thus, be able to order immediately a curfew that limits nighttime social life, but it has also insisted on the need for citizens to renew their “civic and social commitment”, avoiding contacts. Aragonés has called for a “decentralized state of alarm” in which Catalonia maintains all its powers, including health and safety.
The first to make his request public, in any case, was the Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu, who in the early afternoon asked for a state of alarm to be declared throughout the Spanish territory, allowing direct management to remain in the hands of the autonomous governments. For his part, the president of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara, has assured that its intention is to decree a curfew in the region, but once it has the necessary legal guarantees.
The high number of infections in Cantabria makes us make new decisions, difficult but responsible for everyone’s health. Together with the counselor @MiguelR_Sanidad and the president @RevillaMiguelA We agreed to request the Government of Spain to declare a state of alarm. pic.twitter.com/Y19gytnhf1
– Pablo Zuloaga / ❤️ (@Pablo_Zuloaga) October 23, 2020
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The Asturian president, Adrián Barbón, has also made his request official, announcing that he will order restrictions, among which stands out the perimeter closure of Oviedo, Gijón and Avilés. And the president of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, has detailed in a statement that “the near horizon is very worrying”, so she is going to request “the declaration of the state of alarm, with command and management in La Rioja.”
The president of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, has assured from Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) that the state of alarm will be requested to have a legal umbrella in which to take refuge, for which he has summoned an extraordinary Governing Council this Saturday at 11.00. The Vice President of Cantabria, Pablo Zuloaga, for his part, has remarked that “the high number of infections” has forced them to “make new decisions.”
“The second wave comes with an unusual force”
“The next few weeks are going to be very tough. The second wave comes with an unusual force that nobody expected”, said Barbón. “I ask all companies that can facilitate teleworking, to do so.”
“The first overconfidence was talk about new normal. Is not true! Until there is no vaccine we will not be able to embrace our own. But there is also hope: science “, added the Asturian president.
The Extremaduran president has also been very concerned about the situation: “We can all understand that the best decision would be confinement, but we also all understand that it is not possible because there can be no health without economy, nor economy without health. I say it from the responsibility and loneliness of the place I occupy. It’s that clear. We have to weigh decisions that take into account all the consequences.
“As quickly as possible”
In a telephone conversation with Sánchez, the lehendakari has conveyed the need for a state of alarm regarding the health situation and with the desire to act “as quickly as possible to try to preserve the health of all citizens”, as reported by sources from the Basque Presidency.
Urkullu has appeared before the media in Vitoria, two hours after his cabinet reported that the Lehendakari has asked the Prime Minister to declare a state of alarm, a request that he formally sent to the central executive this afternoon.
“The situation is serious”
This morning it was the President of the Government who, in an institutional statement, assured that “the next weeks and months will be hard, very hard”.
“The situation is serious”, has sentenced. “We have doubled the number of cases reported in 24 hours compared to the worst day of the first wave“, he recalled, but he wanted to emphasize that the lessons of spring make the situation different from then. “The situation is not comparable to that of March 14. We don’t want to get to that point, “he said.
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