SPAIN: Spain is currently experiencing a second wave of coronavirus, with Madrid as its epicentre
Far from the massive deconfinement of May, Spain is currently experiencing a second wave of coronavirus to the point of bringing ever more restrictive measures. More than a million inhabitants of the Madrid region can thus only leave their neighbourhood for reasons of first necessity after the extension to new areas on Monday of restrictions intended to curb the epidemic, but that the government central judge insufficient.
Since Monday morning, these measures concern 167,000 additional people who can only leave their neighbourhood for specific reasons such as going to work, going to the doctor or taking children to school. Subject to random police checks, however, these people have the right to move freely in their neighbourhood and are therefore not confined to their homes.
15% of the region’s inhabitants affected by the measures
More than 850,000 people had already been affected for a week, especially in disadvantaged neighbourhoods or municipalities in the south of the capital where demonstrations are increasing to denounce a situation deemed unjust.
In total, almost 15% of the inhabitants of the populated region of 6.6 million people are now affected by these restrictions. But the central government, which considers these measures insufficient, has embarked on a standoff with the region to push it to adopt more drastic measures and threatened it to impose them if it does not act.
31,000 dead in Spain
In Spain, the regions are responsible for health. “The region’s obligation, in collaboration with the government, must be to stop the spread of the Covid,” Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya insisted on Monday on the Antena 3 channel.
Spain has recorded more than 700,000 cases and more than 31,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic with Madrid as the epicentre of the second wave of the epidemic.
