Spain To Tighten Restrictions For Easter

Spain's Health Ministry announced on Thursday that measures will be put in place to limit national travel, and tighten curfews across the country over the Easter holiday period.

National Health Chiefs and regional leaders will hold a meeting on March 10 to discuss the proposal.
Easter week is an important national holiday in Spain, and a time when the country’s tourism industry really takes off.

However, Spain’s Health Ministry reported that all regions should put a 10 pm - 6 am curfew in place for the Easter fortnight, something that is already in place in most areas across the country.

In addition, all regional borders will also remain closed in the hopes of fending off a fourth wave of the Covid virus.

Almost every regional president has already cried out for the borders to remain closed over the Easter holidays. The Health Minister has suggested that this should happen between March 29 and April 9.

Another suggestion that was put forward is that every region should prevent any kind of ‘mass’ event or meeting from taking place and that any meeting in both private or public areas should be restricted to either four or six people.

Other recommendations are for all forms of social gatherings that involve non-family members to be prohibited whether in homes or in outside venues. And for all students to be forbidden to return home for the Easter holidays if they study overseas, or in a different region from their families.

The Ministry of Health would like to see regional advertising campaigns take place to boost morale and combat “pandemic fatigue.”

With restrictions of one form or another in place for nearly a year now, the ministry would love for a positive spin on the Easter restrictions. They want the advertising angle to be that this will be the “last major effort” to help stop the spread of the virus before the mass vaccination takes place and makes an impact in Spain.

Spain, over the Christmas and New Year holidays, was one of the few European countries to relax Covid restrictions to allow family celebrations to take place.

This led to the country suffering from a catastrophic third wave, where hospitals were pushed to their limit and roughly 20,000 people lost their lives to the coronavirus.

Although the country has seen the contagion drop drastically - just over 6,000 reported new cases on Thursday - fatalities still remain high as a further 254 people died from the disease. This brings the total number of deaths to 70,501.

The report states that: “Infection risks will be reduced in the coming months as the vaccine rolls out, but by Easter will not have seen enough vaccinations to get a significant reduction in risk. Measures have to be put into place to avoid another COVID-19 wave.”

Meanwhile, with the aim to save this summer’s tourism season, Spain is promoting a Covid passport at the European level.

The tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, announced that the country will begin its own pilot project to test out the so-called health passport.

Currently, out of the 5.5 million vaccine doses received, just over 4 million have been administered and officials are confident that the vaccination campaign will rapidly accelerate, once more vaccines are approved. This will help boost safety and make travelling easier during the summer.

Source

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spain-to-tighten-curfews-limit-travel-for-easter/2165301
https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2021/03/04/health-chiefs-in-spain-propose-tough-easter-covid-19-curbs-across-whole-country-including-the-costa-del-sol-and-costa-blanca/

Image Credit: Iwona Olczyk from Pixabay