Catalonia plans to close bars and restaurants to stop the increase in covid-19 cases

The acting president, Pere Aragonès, during the weekly meeting of the Catalan Executive Albert Garcia / EL PAÍS

The pandemic in Catalonia is going from bad to worse: there are a thousand patients with coronavirus admitted, and the rate of new cases is accelerating, and those infected have gone from 7,000 to 11,000 a week in a few days.

They are not as bad data as those of Madrid, but the Government will propose in the session of the Procicat (the committee that manages the pandemic in Catalonia) this Wednesday the closure of bars and restaurants.

Not so much because the sector has not complied with prevention measures but because it is the main space for socialization and now it is time to reduce contacts.

The restrictions could affect mobility, although perimeter closures are ruled out for now.

The proposal to close bars and restaurants, advanced by

and confirmed by this newspaper, already had the sector on the warpath.

The restaurateurs were summoned to a meeting this Tuesday afternoon, but the meeting was suspended by the Government and postponed to this Wednesday.

The Restoration Guild no longer hides its discomfort over the amount of regulations and restrictions that the sector accumulates.

And also because of the lack of clarity in future measures and because of an official speech that restaurateurs understand that the clientele scares them.

The president of the Guild, Roger Pallarols, has described as "inadmissible" and "unacceptable for business" the possibility that they are forced to reduce the hours, a possible novelty that Madrid has already taken.

Pallarols has rejected that after months with reduced capacity the increase in infections can be attributed to the restoration and asked the Government for "measures to face the rents" that locals must continue to pay despite the fall in income.

The Government spokeswoman, Meritxell Budó, has not specified the new measures during the press conference after the weekly meeting of the Government, which will be approved in the Procicat, but has confirmed that they will go in two lines.

The first, reducing mobility and, second, reducing social interaction.

The spokeswoman has also explained that there will very possibly be recommendations but also restrictions that may lead to fines.

Budó also assured that, if necessary later, Catalonia "will have no problem requesting" the declaration of a state of alarm.

The Secretary General of the Department of Health, Marc Ramentol, had also indicated that the restrictions on citizen functioning will affect the restoration: "Bars and restaurants are one of the quintessential places of social interaction," he said without specifying, but admitting that the sector "has complied."

“You have to act early because we don't want to end up like other territories that we all have in mind.

We want to do it in a forceful way because we know that it is effective ”, defended Ramentol.

The idea of ​​the Government is to communicate the new restrictions to the affected sectors so that they come into force next Friday.

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia must first give the approval to the plan.

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Currently, the hospitality establishments of Barcelona and the 16 surrounding municipalities, Girona and Salt, Canovelles, Les Franqueses del Vallès Granollers, Reus, Amposta, Tortosa y Roquetes, Vic and Manlleu and the region of La Noguera have restrictions.

In all these municipalities, bars and restaurants cannot serve at the bar, they can only use half the capacity in the interior places and terraces, and they must close at one in the morning (and they cannot serve after midnight).

The data provided on Monday by Health indicates that the index of potential growth or risk of regrowth (EPG) continues to increase in Catalonia and stood at 338.4 (27 points more than Monday), with a speed of reproduction of the disease of 1.33 (each infected infects more than one person on average).

The total number of people killed by covid-19 in Catalonia stood at 13,513, of which 84 have died in the last week.

According to epidemiological data, Budó pointed out, Catalonia is already in the second wave of covid-19.

The Government and the Procicat aim for 25% of the workers in Catalonia to be able to telework, one of the issues that have been discussed with the employers and the unions.

Now only 8% does.

Information about the coronavirus

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