‘We will get over this in some years, but we don’t have to expect this is going to be a hundred-meter run. It’s going to be a marathon.’— Margarita del Val, virologist and immunologist, Spanish National Research Council
The first full day of new coronavirus restrictions in Madrid looked at first glance like business as usual on the city’s famed shopping avenue Gran Vía.
But with the advent of a 50% capacity limit on shops, bars and restaurants, a familiar sight had returned on a chilly Saturday afternoon. Reminiscent of a few months ago when Spain was just emerging from a strict lockdown, a line of shoppers snaked outside retailer Zara ITX, -0.12% and an even bigger one stretched down the street in front of the Primark ABF, -1.86% store.
And even though masks are worn everywhere and all the time now, that 1.5-meter social-distancing measure appears long gone, at a time when Madrid seems to need it most of all.
One has to wonder if this is what warring Spanish politicians had in mind with new rules that kicked in last Friday evening, as the more than 6 million residents of the Madrid region find themselves once again at the epicenter of a major European coronavirus outbreak.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Spain’s 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population stands at 319.3. Only the Czech Republic is close.
It isn’t as if scientists, doctors and the general population aren’t screaming, “Do something!”
While cases climb, thankfully causing fewer deaths this time, Madrid’s right-wing regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has been battling Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s leftist coalition government over how to control the virus. On Sunday, a group of 55 Spanish scientific organizations representing 170,000 health professionals published a manifesto in every newspaper, demanding focus on the crisis.
“In the name of more than 47 million Spaniards, yourselves and your families included, you must change now so much political, professional and human inconsistency,” said the manifesto, which has gained over 31,000 signatures on Change.org
Other measures now being enacted include limiting indoor and outdoor gatherings to six people and shutting businesses at 10 p.m., with bars and restaurants closing at 11 p.m. Ayuso has argued the measures will mean ruin for an already devastated economy. Injecting further uncertainty, Madrid´s high court ruled Thursday that it wouldn´t ratify the restrictions, with more court dates to come.
What a weary Madrid population wants to know is whether any of this be enough. According to one prominent virologist and immunologist who spoke to MarketWatch last week before the measures kicked in, far more must be done.
Margarita del Val heads up a cross-disciplinary initiative by the Spanish National Research Council, or CSIC, called Salud Global/Global Health. She has been urging that the entire region be restricted — 45 municipalities had been before the latest moves, which, owing to the locations of the most heavily affected areas, led to accusations of punishing the poor.
Del Val said that Madrid needs better quarantine control and contact tracing, and that it lacks the health-care officials to carry that out. The government recently announced that police would be able to access health-department data to help enforce quarantines on individuals, while the national army has been drafted to help with contact tracing in parts of the country.
Del Val also zeroed in on heavily congested conditions on public transport. Social media is filled with complaints about crowded buses and trains, specifically in areas that are seeing sharp rises in cases.