Christmas lights, in the center of Madrid this Wednesday.Samuel Sanchez / EL PAÍS
"We all have to stay at home."
That is the government's message for this Christmas, in the words of the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa.
They were pronounced after the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS), which, however, approved a plan that allows changing the autonomous community between December 23 and January 6 whenever a meeting is attended with "relatives or close friends ”.
Through this agreement, the perimeter closure of all the autonomous communities is imposed except for these exceptions, whose justification is not clear, as well as the limitation of meetings to 10 people and the curfew at 1.30 on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.
The minister appealed to the responsibility of citizens and assured that he refers, in addition to direct relatives, to those people who without being so have a "great affective bond."
What can and cannot be done this Christmas
Coronavirus in Spain: measures and restrictions by communities
The strategy approved this Wednesday is based on restricting movements as much as possible without preventing family reunions during the upcoming holidays.
It is at the discretion of the citizens themselves who they consider to be a close friend.
It is clear that you cannot go sightseeing outside the community where you live, but the exception is so great that it is impossible to control.
It is not a novelty in this health crisis, which has imposed limitations whose fulfillment depended exclusively on the will of the citizens.
This is also the case of the limitation of the number of people per meeting: no one will be able to verify that it is actually met.
Most of the communities subscribed to the plan.
The main discordant note was Madrid, which, through a spokesperson, assured this Wednesday that "it does not feel linked to the agreement" and voted against.
Here begins a legal discrepancy that in the past ended with the imposition of a state of alarm in the community.
This time there is already one in force.
According to Illa, thanks to him the CISNS agreements are binding and it is enough to notify the regional governments of them.
Sources present at the meeting report that Madrid expressed that if it is not published in the BOE, it has no intention of complying with it.
Illa replied that it is not necessary, so she has no intention of doing so.
Health has not achieved the purpose of leaving the Interterritorial a joint position and a single message.
This is the reason why the number of participants in the meetings had been made more flexible: from the six that had been foreseen in the initial draft, to the 10 that are now collected at lunches and dinners on December 24, 25, 31 and January 1.
It is a measure proposed by Madrid, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarra and Murcia.
Also the limitation of the curfew, which was planned for 1.00 on the nights of the 24th and 31st, and has been carried half an hour later, as requested by Madrid.
Of course, you can only be on the street at that time returning home, not going to a party or celebration.
Catalonia, for its part, pointed out that although it has announced measures similar to those agreed in the Interterritorial, it does not feel linked to the agreement either, since these decisions are the responsibility of its own Christmas plan.
Sources present at the meeting indicated that other communities assured that they will go further in the measures, something that the agreement allows.
Possibility of regrowth
The measures, in the opinion of several epidemiologists consulted, open the possibility of a regrowth after Christmas - something that most take for granted - after a continuous fall in cases: this Wednesday the incidence stood at 251 per 100,000 inhabitants, they were registered 9,331 infections and 273 deaths.
The ideal way to avoid this would be for everyone to stay at home, for there to be no meetings of people who do not live together.
But it is not an easy decision.
In the balance they put the social demand to meet the health situation.
“I'm so glad I don't have to decide something like that.
To avoid the spread of the virus, it would be best to eliminate the meetings.
It would mean following a hard line that we have not followed until now, and that is what Italy has done, for example: cancel Christmas, ”says epidemiologist Javier del Águila.
The incidence of the coronavirus in Spain is half that of a month ago
Beyond the particular limitations, some criticize a lack of clear leadership and strategy.
This is the case of Ildefonso Hernández, spokesperson for the Spanish Public Health Society: “I believe that the general objectives to be achieved with the set of measures should be made more explicit.
That is, what risk situations do you want to avoid with each one of them.
I say this so that the population understands, for example, what is meant by restricting mobility between communities, but not within communities;
what is the objective of limiting meetings within homes… ”In his opinion, the approved measures are not adequate,“ not so much because of their literal meaning ”, but because of the absence of monitoring of objectives as a society and the lack of detail about the risk situations that "yes or yes" we should avoid, such as sharing closed spaces between non-cohabitants.
With information from
Isabel Valdés
and
Jessica Mouzo
.
Information about the coronavirus
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- Guide to action against the disease