MADRID (AP) – While most of Europe in 2021 has started with earlier indications or stay-at-home orders, authorities in Spain are insisting that the new coronavirus variant destruction elsewhere is not blamed for a sharp revival of affairs and that the land it can avoid a complete lockdown, even if the hospitals are full.
The government relentlessly fended off in the spring of 2020 as the one that paralyzed the economy for almost three months, the last time Spain was able to achieve a victory over the stubborn rising curve of affairs.
The infection rates increased in October, but never completely eroded the summer boom. Cases started climbing again before the end of the year. In the past month, the 14-day rates have more than doubled, from 188 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on December 10 to 522 per 100,000 on Thursday.
Nearly 39,000 new cases were reported on Wednesday and more than 35,000 on Thursday, from the highest daily increases to date.
The boom again threatens the capacity of the intensive care unit and hampers exhausted medical workers. Some facilities have already had elective surgery suspended, and the eastern city of Valencia has reopened a temporary hospital used last year.
Unlike Portugal, which will do a month-long exclusion on Friday and officials in Spain doubling fines for those who do not wear masks are sufficient to take short, highly localized measures that restrict social gatherings without affecting the entire economy.
“We know what we have to do, and we do it,” Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news conference on Wednesday, ruling out a national home protection order and advocating “measures that were a success during the second wave.”
Fernando Simón, the government’s biggest virus expert, blamed the recent increase in business on Christmas and New Year celebrations. “The new variant, even if it has an impact, will be a marginal one, at least in our country,” he said this week.
But many independent experts disagree, saying that Spain has no ability to carry out the widespread sequence of samples to track how the new variant has spread, and that 88 confirmed and nearly 200 suspected cases that, according to officials, largely imported into the UK, the real impact.
Dr. Rafael Bengoa, former director of Healthcare Systems at the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press the government should immediately impose a strict but short “four-week detention.
“Trying to do as little as possible to not affect the economy or for political reasons does not get us where we need to be,” said Bengoa, who also oversaw a deep-seated reform of the Basque health system.
The situation in Spain is in stark contrast to other European countries which in some cases also showed similar sharp jumps, and is increasingly being blamed for the more contagious variant first detected in the UK
The Netherlands, which has been locked up for a month, has begun to reduce the rate of infections. But with 2% to 5% of the new COVID-19 cases from the new variant, the country is from Friday onwards requiring air passengers from the UK, Ireland and South Africa not just a negative PCR test must not deliver, taken at most 72 hours before departure. but also a rapid antigen test result from just before takeoff.
France, where a recent study of 100,000 positive tests yielded about 1% of infections with the variant, is already introducing curfew rules at 6 p.m., and Health Minister Oliver Veran did not rule out a home order if the situation worsens.
Existing barriers or the prospect of compulsory incarceration have not been questioned or turned into a political issue in other European countries.
Ireland has instituted a full lockout after it was found that widespread infections were linked to the new variant. Italy has a color-coded system that activates a strict exclusion at the highest or red level, although no areas are currently in that stage.
In the UK, scientific evidence of the new variant has silenced some critics of restrictions and urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to introduce measures that are strict but slightly milder than the country’s first exclusion.. People were ordered to stay at home, except for limited essential travel and exercise, and schools were closed, except for a few exceptions.
In Germany, where the daily new business of 7 days recently shot up to 26 per 100,000 people, many dignitaries argue that the current strict detention order should be sharpened and extended to the current end-of-January expiration.
Nordic countries have rejected mandatory closures and place strict restrictions on events and certain activities. Residents were asked to follow specific recommendations to limit the spread of the virus.
In Sweden, the case is legal and political, as there is no law that allows the government to restrict the mobility of the population. Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven last month called on residents not to go to the gym or library, “we do not believe in total exclusion”, before adding: “We are following our strategy . ‘
Policymakers in Spain seem to be taking a similar approach, although it remains to be seen whether the results will be wrong. On Thursday, they insisted that the vaccinations would soon reach ‘cruising speed’.
But Bengoa, the former WHO expert, said vaccinations could not solve the problem immediately.
“To try to live with the virus for months is to live with a very high mortality rate and with the possibility of creating new variants,” he said, adding that the new variant of the virus that is widespread in the UK identified, the original version looks like a good version. ‘
Dr Salvador Macip, a researcher at the University of Leicester and the Open University of Catalonia, says the combination of spiral infections and the uncertainty about the new variant should be enough for a more restrictive approach, but that the pandemic fatigue makes such decisions more take. difficult for countries like Spain, with polarized politics.
“People are fed up with making sacrifices that bring us nowhere because they see that they will have to repeat them,” Macip said.
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Associated Press writers across Europe contributed.
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