Marina Artusa
07/13/2020 - 14:24
- Clarín.com
- World
Spain is restless and in trouble. Barely three weeks have passed since the state of alarm was lifted and, with it, the restrictions that the coronavirus forced on the mobility of people and the feeling here is that the pandemic, which was supposed to be controlled, is forcing penalties to be stopped : the Increased outbreaks and the disparate management of these covid outbreaks by the autonomous communities accelerated this Monday the presentation of an "Early response plan in a scenario of control of the pandemic by Covid-19".
There are already more than one hundred outbreaks of the virus throughout Spain and they worry the government. Maneuvering with them, controlling and appeasing them is in the hands of the autonomies, they emphasize from the Ministry of Health to stand out, and if they alone did not succeed, the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System would take action, which can agree on mandatory measures for more than a territory. All this before having to re-enact the state of alarm, a decision that the government does not encourage or rule out . For now.
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Watch the specialPresident Pedro Sánchez, who had planned to spend the whole week visiting his European counterparts to convince them of the need for Europe to allocate a juicy recovery fund after the knockout in which the virus sank them, met this Monday with the management committee that tracks the evolution of the epidemic before traveling to The Hague to meet the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte.
Hours later, the Ministry of Health presented the early response plan clarifying, contradictorily, that there is nothing new about it and that it is a compilation of measures that are already being implemented in Spain.
What is novel, and even puzzling, is how to experience a flare-up of the pandemic depending on which region it affects.
A week ago, Galicia quarantined some 70 thousand residents of A Mariña, Lugo region, but only from Monday to Friday, taking into account that there were elections in the community on Sunday and its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, was on the fourth reelection of which he was victorious.
In Catalonia, another 210 thousand people have been confined in the Segrè region for more than a week and this Monday a judicial decision was known that at dawn objected to the Catalan President Quim Torra imposing more severe isolation measures on eight municipalities of that region: about 150 thousand neighbors who had to stay at home and leave only to go to work or take care of children and the elderly.
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The Lérida judge on duty considered that the Government of the Generalitat has no competence to confine people in this way and that this decision could only be made by the national government through the state of alarm.
Torra retaliated with the preparation of a law decree so that his decision to quarantine that area of Catalonia is followed.
"We cannot entertain ourselves for a minute in judicial or jurisdictional battles," said the Catalan president. We assume the consequences that result from it. ”
Days ago the Spanish Ministry of Health gave its definition of an outbreak: "Episode in which three or more people confirmed with Covid-19 arise who are related at the same time or place." He also adhered to the criterion according to which Spain opens its doors to visitors from countries outside the European Union who, from an epidemiological point of view, have had in the last 14 days an average of 16 positive cases of coronavirus for every 100,000 inhabitants.
Why, then, do you not define criteria for agreeing when a population in which the covid spread increases should return to confinement and what that quarantine should look like?
Health sources clarify that it is necessary to evaluate each situation in particular, consider the risk of community transmission that they entail and the specific response solutions for those situations.
"An outbreak of 20 cases with a single origin in a family setting is not the same as five outbreaks in five parts of the city," they give as an example.
Spain aims to ensure that its response to outbreaks today is based on early detection, on the capacity of health care, on prevention and control at the collective level, on communication to the population and on having sufficient reserves to respond to situations. unexpected. As if the arrival of a second wave of infections was not as far as expected.
Madrid. Correspondent