New phase of Spanish Covid expermient begins on Sunday as state of alarm lifted after six months
Spain is far from zero Covid and from Sunday people can move freely about most of the country again, with almost no curfews.
As Saturday turns into Sunday this weekend, Spain will lift its six-months-long Covid state of alarm. The national government has decided not to try to renew it. That emergency umbrella has allowed seventeen regional governments to impose a series of social distancing measures around the country, from town and provincial border closures to curfews and the size and composition of groups in bars, in public spaces and even in private homes. Most of those measures, in most regions, will now disappear.
But Covid has not disappeard. 14-day incidence rates (coronavirus cases per 100,000 people) range from 40 (Valencia) to 463 (Basque Country), according to the latest Health Ministry update. The percentage of the adult population that has received at least one jab of one of the vaccines is between 23% (Melilla) and 39% (Asturias). ICU occupation rates also vary wildly depending on which Spanish region we are in: from just below 5% in Galicia to nearly 43% in Madrid. And the Ministry is still counting more ICU spaces than there were real ones to begin with, with their original and hard-to-replace specialist staffing levels.
At no point since last summer has Spain gone back to the very low levels we had then after almost three months cooped up at home or with very restricted movements. Once people started travelling around again in June and July, Covid came back. Throughout the Autumn, levels rose as a consequence and then dropped before Christmas but did not revert to summer levels and shot back up in January. Over Easter, a minor wave began and now appears to be falling, on average nationally.
We are still not back to last summer's lows, despite the vaccination levels and despite the complex combinations of regional restrictions. So what happens after Sunday? The balance of elements is going to change again. There is still a base number of cases, transmission rates and Covid patients in hosptials. Spain is far from zero Covid. The vaccination programme will continue at its ordinary rate. What is going to shift is the social movement and transmission dynamic. There will be more people moving around more towns and regions, and whenever they want. Just like before.
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