The arsenal of weapons to stop the covid has been growing at the same rate that knowledge about the virus increased: masks, teleworking, hand hygiene, interpersonal distance, ventilation and, above all, vaccines. Spain trusts everything to these tools to weather a sixth wave that continues to rise and that has forced other European countries to extreme restrictions, especially among unvaccinated people. Neither the Government nor the experts believe it necessary to go to extremes such as mandatory vaccination with immunization rates reaching 90% of the target population. The objective is to overcome this new wave without more limitations than those already contemplated by the autonomous communities and that have been used since in May ended the last state of alarm.
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, repeats the message every time she has a microphone in front of her. “We know what the measures are that protect us. A call to social distance, to the use of a mask, especially indoors, or outdoors if there is no distance. It is still up to us to keep the virus at bay. And, above all, continue attending these vaccination campaigns to continue protecting ourselves against the virus. Vaccinate, vaccinate and vaccinate, and prevent, prevent and prevent are the measures that are within our reach ”, were the first words he spoke this Friday after the Council of Ministers in the Moncloa press room.
The Government has resisted throughout the pandemic to approve a specific law for health emergencies and has preferred to use current legislation or states of alarm when it fell short. Moncloa does not seem to have any kind of extreme measure on the agenda in the coming weeks. It has decided to maintain the policy that it has followed since the summer of 2020: to leave the main management of the crisis in the hands of the communities and for each court of justice to make decisions that will then be approved by the Supreme Court. This is how all the decisions have been managed in recent months and the Executive is satisfied with the result, although there have been some inefficiencies. La Moncloa insistently boasts that the World Health Organization has congratulated Spain on managing the pandemic and especially on vaccination, and from there it does not move.
Depending on the epidemiological situation, communities have room to limit capacity, restrict opening hours or even limit fundamental rights. This has been validated by the Supreme Court, which has been leading the way for regional governments since May. Although each case is studied individually, it has made it clear that communities can limit rights such as movement or assembly, but provided that these restrictions are “specific” and “essential” to fight the virus. Under this interpretation, it rejected all curfews or generalized perimeter confinements that it had to review, but authorized those that were limited to small populations with a high incidence of the virus, which led communities to bet more and more to limit restrictions on areas with the highest risk of contagion to ensure judicial endorsement.
The latest pronouncements of the high court have been to support the use of the COVID certificate in nightlife establishments and restaurants in Galicia and the Basque Country. The ruling on the latter case, notified this Friday, reproaches the judges of the Basque High Court for rejecting the measure. “The current different severity of the pandemic, the less aggressiveness of the disease in many cases, the smaller hospital occupancy and intensive care units that on previous occasions do not justify dispensing with the necessary preventions to avoid the reproduction of critical moments of the past ”, indicates the court.
Eight autonomies have already begun to implement the passport, although it is a measure of doubtful utility when it comes to curbing infections, according to the technicians who advise both the ministry and the communities themselves. In an internal report they pointed out that it has not proven its effectiveness, beyond encouraging vaccination.
Precisely for this reason it is being used by some countries that are further behind than Spain when it comes to inoculating their population. But in places like Germany, where nearly a third are unvaccinated, the Government already has among its plans to make the vaccine mandatory, something that this week has had the approval of the European Commission, although it lacks competences in this matter.
Federico de Montalvo, president of the Bioethics Committee of Spain, is committed to resorting to restrictions on freedoms only when other options have been exhausted. Although he believes that compulsory vaccination is defensible in certain contexts, he does not consider it to be the situation in Spain today: “We have been defending it since January and time has proved us right.”
In an epidemiological and vaccination situation like the Spanish one, Montalvo believes that the maximum limitation that the authorities should reach today is to request the covid certificate. “And only in the most affected areas”, he clarifies. This expert in bioethics considers that it should be limited to certain leisure spaces and not applied to workplaces.
The problem with many of the measures, says Ana María García, Professor of Public Health at the University of Valencia, is that there is really no evidence of their usefulness. “We have vaccines, masks, which have surely been the reason why we are better than almost all European countries, but not the COVID certificate or mandatory vaccination. Years will pass for that and we need answers now. And in a situation of uncertainty, a maxim of public health is to apply the precautionary principle ”, he emphasizes. With this premise, he believes that incentivizing vaccination with the passport may make sense, as well as mandatory vaccination in certain sectors, as health workers or people who work with the elderly. “People tend to think that the vaccine is only a measure of individual protection and it is not like that,” ditch.
All the spotlights are now on the unvaccinated. It is a more European phenomenon than Spanish, although the debate is already imported. “It is preferable to make restrictions on them than on the entire population”, defends De Montalvo, who states that it is no longer possible to wield an equality problem, as was the case a few months ago: “Today anyone who wants the injection can receive it free of charge. If you don’t have it, it’s because you didn’t want to ”.
The hospitality industry, divided
This tool is a previous step to another type of tougher restrictions for the general population. Among hoteliers, there are those who refuse to add to their work a task that is alien to them, such as checking certificates, and warn of organizational difficulties. On the other, there are voices in favor of its use, since they consider that it is the only way to avoid time or capacity restrictions that would imply a new punishment for an industry that has been hit hard in the last year and a half.
José Luis Yzuel, president of the Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation, is one of those who are in favor of accepting it as a lesser evil. “If they are going to close it or they are going to put a limitation on you, then welcome is the passport. Better to have your hand cut off than your arm ”, he compares. The Business Coordinator of Leisure and Hospitality of the Valencian Community (CEOH) has asked that small premises be exempt from claiming the covid passport because dedicating a person to that task is difficult for them, and having at their disposal an approved application that prevents fraud .
The lack of evidence on the usefulness of the effectiveness of the covid certificate, however, raises many discrepancies among experts. Some of those consulted insist on promoting what is known to work. Pedro Gullón, from the Spanish Epidemiology Society, believes that the key is to dissuade the population from gathering in “dangerous spaces”. It has long been clear that poorly ventilated interiors are the perfect contagion site. “We would have to use known and other imaginative measures to prevent many people from crowding in these types of spaces,” says Gullón.
Telecommuting is another simple incentive tool that this epidemiologist emphasizes. “It is a way to avoid social interactions indoors that we have seen can be implemented without great social costs in many companies,” he emphasizes. Offices are becoming environments that people perceive as conducive to contagion, according to Gullón, who argues that many people have already lost respect for mild symptoms and go to work centers to avoid having to request a short leave. “These situations can be solved with teleworking,” he says.
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