It's a huge backpedal: according to several Catalan media, Catalonia, epicenter of this fifth wave of the pandemic, is preparing this Wednesday to ask regional justice for the green light to impose a curfew in the most affected cities. .
Including the capital, Barcelona.
Since last weekend, closed-space nightclubs have been closed for at least 15 days, while a negative antigen or PCR test is required to attend outdoor events if they have more than 500 people.
In the past two weeks, Catalonia has recorded some 79,000 new cases among its 7.7 million inhabitants.
Other regions have taken or are considering similar measures.
The region of Valence (south-east) has thus reimposed a curfew from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. and limited to ten the number of people who can participate in meetings in 32 localities of more than 5,000 inhabitants, after agreement of the most high regional judicial body.
The government of the Canary Islands wanted to adopt similar restrictions, but was prevented from doing so by local justice.
Out of control situation among young people
In question: the Delta variant, much more contagious, at the origin in recent weeks of an exponential increase in cases, mainly in young people.
Read also Covid-19: England, Spain ... and soon France?
How the epidemic is picking up again among young people
On Tuesday evening, the incidence reached 436 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days, a level that had not been reached since the dark hours of the pandemic.
This is a national average: because among young people, the situation is out of control.
The incidence was thus Tuesday of 3 311 cases per 100,000 people over 14 days with regard to the fringe of 20 to 29 years.
Municipalities, like that of Barcelona which attracts tourists from all over Europe during the summer, are seeking to limit access to beaches and parks, where young people gather for alcoholic parties that promote the spread of the virus.
“What surprised us a little is the rapidity of the contagions,” notes Dr Alvaro Arcocha, deputy director of the Bellvitge hospital in Barcelona.
In this establishment, patients hospitalized on the floor reserved for Covid-19 patients thus increased from 20 to 110 in less than two weeks.
In addition, the average age of these patients (44 years) is much lower than during previous waves of the pandemic.
The serious deterioration of the health situation worries the Spanish tourism professionals, who expressed their fears on Wednesday of a "sudden slowdown", while the summer season was shaping up so well a month ago.
A different fifth wave
With a significant portion of the population now vaccinated, this fifth wave is different from previous ones: hospitals are seeing younger patients arriving, many of whom are not vaccinated or have not yet completed the vaccination process.
Nationally, the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units as well as the number of deaths remain well below the peaks of the pandemic.
On Tuesday, the authorities reported 13 dead in 24 hours.
The challenge for the 17 autonomous communities of the country, responsible for health, is to find the means to fight the pandemic while they are on their own, since the central government of the socialist Pedro Sanchez lifted in early May the state of health emergency, called a state of alert.
Deprived of this legal shield, which served as the legal basis for the curfew, the regions are totally dependent on the judicial authority, which must validate all their decisions.
This turn of the screw comes as the spring 2020 home confinement is declared unconstitutional by the highest court in the country.
The court did not question the relevance of the measures adopted by the left-wing government to slow the advance of the Covid-19, but the legal mechanism chosen, namely the state of health emergency.
