"Can we confine the population?" Salvador Illa recounts those frantic days of the pandemic

The president, Pedro Sánchez, announces the state of alarm.

It was March 13, 2020. Burak Akbulut (Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Alberto, can we do in Spain what the Chinese are doing?

Can we confine the population and restrict movements?” I asked Alberto Herrera, undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, during a lunch at the Ateneo [at the end of February 2020].

He had been thinking for days about the drastic measure that had been imposed in China to contain the spread of the virus.

Alberto remained silent for a few seconds with a reflexive gesture, then he nodded.

Yes, there were legal tools to do it, but there was no precedent in the history of Spain, it had never been done.

Only once, during the air traffic controller crisis, had the state of alarm been applied, militarizing air control.

But then it had been done to protect freedom of movement, not to restrict it as I was proposing now,

for the right to health.

A few hours later, Alberto gave me a note and a table with the possibilities.

He posited three scenarios.

The first, applying the provisions of health legislation, had already been done before, during the Ebola crisis, for example.

The autonomous communities could close businesses, suspend activities, limit public services or order the isolation of sick people or their contacts, always under judicial authorization.

The second option was the National Security Law.

It is a law from 2015 that has never been applied and that, if necessary, would allow the President of the Government, and the Minister of Health if delegated by the President, to decide that certain services or resources of the National System of Health became directly dependent on the Ministry of Health.

Something like activating a reinforced coordination.

But little more, because that law does not provide for the possibility of limiting any fundamental right.

The doubts were many, actually, all of them.

In addition, everything that involved limiting rights caused chills

The third scenario was the state of alarm.

It allows the limitation of fundamental rights such as free movement and provides for the State to exercise sole command, the Government is empowered to issue orders to all the authorities of any administration.

There were many doubts, actually all of them, because in Spain no law had ever been applied to restrict movements or confine the population, the measure that had allowed the Wuhan authorities to control the spread of the virus.

In addition, everything that involved limiting rights caused chills.

At the moment it was just a matter of knowing what non-pharmacological tools we could count on if necessary.

At that time, the cases of those infected by coronavirus did not exceed fifty in Spain.

Listening to concepts such as restricting or limiting fundamental rights were very thick words and I agreed with Alberto that other avenues had to be explored.

There was no user manual, it had never been applied in Spain, so we would go step by step, if necessary we would climb the ladder rung by rung.

We would begin by seeking an umbrella for common action by publishing recommendations agreed upon with the autonomous communities.

This was the most consistent with the desire that the president had expressed to me to respect as much as possible the composite nature of our governance system.

(…)

Why weren't flights with Italy banned then?

Our commitment was to adopt measures coordinated by the EU

I remember those days frantic.

We asked the autonomous communities to start dusting off the hospital emergency plans.

The technicians of the ministry made a tremendous effort to prepare and make public use documents, guides and protocols aimed at professionals: the treatment of patients in home care, in hospitals, non-pharmacological measures... Some works in which we have the collaboration of scientific societies.

When on March 6 the WHO published the strategic objectives to be followed in the fight against covid-19, Spain already had many of them incorporated.

On the same day, we published a prevention and control guide in nursing homes and other residential social service centers on the ministry's website.

Many times I have been asked why more extreme measures were not taken in those days, why flights with Italy, the European country towards which all eyes were directed, were not banned then, as was done later.

The answer is still the same today as it was then, our commitment was to adopt coordinated measures within the EU, that mobility in Europe be jointly agreed, and they would not be partial, patchwork measures.

You could not move by plane, but you could by road.

(…)

We knew that some 7,000 people from northern Italy entered Spain daily and the main routes connected with Madrid and Barcelona.

Later we identified some of the commercial events in which citizens of both countries participated and which were a breeding ground for the transmission of the virus: a fur fair in Milan in which companies from Igualada (Barcelona), La Rioja and the Valencian Community participated. ;

the international fair of contemporary art, Arco, which was held at the end of February in Madrid;

Milan fashion week… I came back from Brussels worried, a lot.

In Europe there were different perceptions and approaches, and in Spain the number of infections increased day by day.

(…)

Thursday, March 12.

Status: 2,965 cases, 803 more than the day before.

Around 75% of the total cases are found in four autonomous communities: Madrid, the Basque Country, La Rioja and Catalonia.

Madrid is the one in the worst situation.

It records 1,388 cases, 190 people admitted to hospitals, of which 135 in the ICU, and 56 deaths (that day a total of 84 people died in Spain since the start of the pandemic).

(…)

On Friday, March 13, an interview with the newspaper EL PAÍS was scheduled.

It was the first time I gave this newspaper since my appointment and I couldn't have chosen a worse day.

The appointment was at twelve.

They were waiting in the Portrait Room for nearly three hours until my communication director, Miriam Lorenzo, apologized and informed them that the interview had to be postponed.

(…) After a while the president called me.

He asked me if he believed that the state of alarm should be declared.

My answer was yes.

So he asked me why.

“President, with the current framework of powers, coordination work takes away from us an agility that is currently vital, essential.

And we also have to work in coordination with our European partners, we need to take global measures”.

(…)

Before hanging up, the president summoned me to a videoconference that would be held a few minutes later and in which the four vice presidents, the spokesperson minister and the transport minister would also participate.

(…) “I am going to propose that you call a state of alarm,” the president announced on the other side of the screen after asking Fernando Simón for a situation status.

The response of all those summoned to the meeting was unanimous, including Pablo Iglesias.

“Minister Illa, are you prepared in the ministry to take it on?” Pedro Sánchez asked me.

“President, we are to what is available.

Maximum effort, my commitment and that of my team”.

(…)

That afternoon, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, made an institutional statement from the Moncloa Palace, without questions.

He announced the convocation the next day of an extraordinary Council of Ministers, the third in a week, to agree on the state of alarm for a maximum of fifteen days.

Before, he had informed the king, the president of Congress and the main political forces.

He would later do the same with the regional presidents.

We were starting a new page in the history of Spain.

The state of alarm was declared with 5,898 cases in our country, later we would know that there were many more.

Salvador Illa

(La Roca del Vallès, 1966) is the leader of the PSC.

He was Minister of Health with the PSOE between 2020 and 2021. This excerpt is a preview of his book 'The year of the pandemic', which Peninsula publishes on September 7. 

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