ARCHIVED - Murcia Today weekly bulletin 3rd April 2020

Easter Week begins with all events cancelled as the coronavirus death toll nears 11,000

As the coronavirus lockdown in Spain reaches the end of its third week much of the population is now getting accustomed to a routine which only a short time ago seemed inconceivable, but with the figures continuing to rise it should not be imagined that the routine is in any way a comfortable one.

When our last bulletin was issued on 27^th March the number of Covid-19 cases reported in Spain stood at just over 64,000, but now the latest total published by the Ministry of Health just a week later is 117,710. In some ways this can be viewed positively as the figures are no longer rising exponentially but the increase continues to be a steady one, and resources at hospitals all over the country are being stretched to breaking point and beyond, with extra field hospitals being hurriedly drafted into service. Only now are there signs that the number of people in intensive care in the region of Madrid, for example, may be stabilizing or even beginning to drop, but on the other hand the number of new fatalities has been over 900 in each of the last two daily updates and Spain accounts for 20% of all worldwide recorded Covid-10 deaths.

At the same time, the coronavirus death toll across the country is now well almost 11,000, having more than doubled over the last week, and if there is any really positive news it is that as time goes on the number of patients making a complete recovery is also beginning to grow more quickly, currently standing at over 30,000.

As was the case a week ago, arguably the only way to make sense of the news over the last week, which has been almost entirely dominated by the pandemic and its social and economic effects, is to take the summary day by day in an effort to follow the multiple developments in the way the virus has spread and the crisis is being reported throughout Spain.

To recap:

Friday 27^th March

7,871 new cases, total 64,059

760 fatalities, total 4,858

9,357 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 714 cases, 15 fatalities, 12 recoveries

Then we start this week:

Monday 30th March

7,340 new cases, total 85,195

812 fatalities, total 7,340

16,780 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 939 cases, 25 fatalities, 17 recoveries

The latest figures were seen by the Minister of Health as a sign that a peak in the coronavirus was being reached, but the week began with the news that the Spanish government had decided during the weekend that more drastic measures were required in order to combat the spread of Covid-19, passing emergency legislation to halt all production and work activity except that related to “essential” services.

Thus, for almost the entire workforce a period of at least two weeks began in which essentially they are being fully paid without being required to work, the idea being to work back the time gradually over the rest of the year. To put it another way, according to the Minister for Hacienda, the productive systems of Spain were to go into hibernation for a fortnight, a move which creates great uncertainty over the future of numerous businesses throughout the country.

As for the “essential” services and activities identified by the government, they include those which form part of the supply and distribution of food and other essential products, the production and distribution of health products and services, transport services, animal health centres, media sales outlets and news agencies, financial services and banks, telecommunications and audiovisual companies, lawyers, notaries, water supply (including distribution and sanitization, postal services, electricity generation and supply and ports and airports.

The construction sector, though, which accounts for around 10 per cent of Spain’s GDP, is absent from the list of businesses which are viewed as essential and must continue to operate until the start of Easter weekend.

Meanwhile, as the number of patients hospitalized in and around Madrid continued to rise sharply, it was announced that a second additional morgue was to be created in the unused Ciudad de la Justicia building in Madrid (which is popularly known as “El Dónut”, or the doughnut due to its unusual design). The Anatomic Forensics Institute is the only one of the 12 projected structures to have been completed within the complex for which approval was given in 2005 and contains 205 niches, although only around 160 of them can be used as the extra space provided by the Palacio de Hielo ice rink in the city proves insufficient.

By the end of the week a third emergency morgue had been announced at another ice rink, this time in the Madrid district of Majadahonda.

The most worrying news trend on Monday, though, was the publication of more and more studies concluding that the coronavirus death toll and case numbers in Spain are severely understated, and one of them illustrates clearly why this is probably the case. Taking as an example the region of Castilla y León, one of the worst affected, the number of deaths recorded between 17th and 24th March 2020 was 885, some 77 per cent more than the “normal” figure of around 500 for the same dates in previous years.

But if the logical deduction is that the “extra” 385 deaths were caused by the coronavirus, this would indicate that the official Covid-19 figure of 112 in the region during the week is a severe underestimate. If this conclusion is valid, the explanation would be that the cause of death has been reported as pneumonia or other conditions and that coronavirus testing was not carried out due to the shortage of the necessary equipment.

Among those Covid-19 deaths which were reported, on the other hand, was that of a pregnant woman in Galicia who died after going into labour as previously existing medical conditions were aggravated, while her baby was stillborn: her husband has since tested negative for Covid-19. Another victim was the fourth doctor to succumb to the virus in Spain, a 28-year-old woman who worked at a medical centre in Mota del Cuervo, in the province of Cuenca. Sara Bravo was asthmatic and her condition was complicated by Covid-19, and she died after being admitted to hospital in Ciudad Real.

Her case highlighted still further the shortage of protective equipment available to the medical profession (and to the forces of law and order), although on the same day a Hercules C-130 landed at the airfield of Torrejón de Ardoz with the 10,000 protective suits purchased from the Czech Republic in response to an urgent request made to NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC). Later in the day another 20 tons of medical equipment arrived from China.

In Murcia, meanwhile, the regional health minister warned that more “hard days” lay ahead after the death toll rose to 25 (15 of them residents of homes for the elderly), again re-stating that it is of vital importance to continue abiding by the lockdown restrictions in order to limit both the severity and the duration of the current emergency. At that point in the Region of Murcia 939 cases of Covid-19 had been confirmed but it was widely accepted that the real figures were likely to be as much as ten times higher: numerous reports were received of people phoning the regional coronavirus emergency number after presenting possible symptoms of the virus but then not hearing from the health service again, due no doubt to the widely reported shortage of rapid testing kits.

Manuel Villegas also warned that failures to obey the lockdown could mean the emergency lasting until June, and with the Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera no longer welcoming any passenger flights there was no additional risk to the health of members of the public when a fire broke out in a machine room. Fortunately the flames were extinguished quickly and only limited damage was reported.

Tuesday 31st March

9,222 new cases, total 94,417

849 fatalities, total 8,189

19,259 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 974 cases, 34 fatalities, 20 recoveries

In percentage terms the latest data might have been seen as encouraging, but the numbers of new cases and deaths gave few grounds for optimism and another study paper, this time published by Imperial College London, estimated that there might be as many as 7 million cases of Covid-19 in Spain.

This was the backdrop as the government finally announced some relief for the self-employed in Spain, making it possible for them to suspend their social security contributions for 6 months with no interest or surcharges payable.

In principle the payments related to April, May and June are all included in cases where workers have been obliged to cease their professional activities, but the postponement is not applicable to businesses where ERTE temporary employment regulation schemes had already been filed or to income periods which have already finished. Initially the move was welcomed by the millions of self-employed in Spain, but later in the week some reported that they would still be required to make their contributions in April, and one estimate was that only around 30 per cent of the sole traders in the Region of Murcia would benefit.

It also highlighted the ongoing confusion about who was still allowed to work and as the week has gone by more than one autonomo self-employed builder has been able to prove to the police that he is working alone and is not a company employing other people, so has secured permission to continue to work. If you are in the same situation, go to the police with all your documentation and ask for permission to continue.

Meanwhile, with the death toll in Murcia rising by 9, there were reports of those living in coastal towns being upset by the sudden arrival of many weekend lockdown breakers from the regional capital spending a couple of days in their second homes.

Offences reported over the weekend included people sunbathing on the beach in Puerto de Mazarrón and Cabo de Palos and impromptu parties being held on roof terraces, and across the country the Guardia Civil reported that 3,695 people had been fined over the weekend for such offences as the result of 7,096 spot checks on the roads: in other words, over half of all drivers stopped turned out to be travelling without justification, a frightening statistic given the importance of the lockdown restrictions.

At the same time the Policía Nacional fined another 4,810, bringing their figure for the last fortnight up to 66,990, among them cyclists claiming that they live next to the place where they had been detained although in reality their homes were 20 or 30 kilometres away, people claiming to be walking the Camino de Santiago route in northern Spain despite having no backpack or other equipment and, most commonly, drivers claiming they have just nipped out to buy a loaf of bread: in one case an individual was 21 kilometres from his home on such a mission.

More positive news in Murcia was the arrival of 1.7 million facemasks for medical professionals, although with 20,000 rapid coronavirus testing kits still not having reached the regional health service it was suggested that this may not be as important as it seems: Manuel Villegas, the minister for Health in Murcia, maintained that the top priority at present is to isolate all patients who have symptoms which may be caused by Covid-19. 

But rightly or wrongly, by this stage the statistics regarding the pandemic have begun to wash over many people as they get used to the daily updates, and once again stories of potential economic crisis dominated the headlines. For example, it is widely assumed that agricultural production will continue uninterrupted, but fruit and vegetable growers in Spain are suffering from the lack of their foreign workforce this spring as the closure of borders means migratory farmhands are not available to harvest crops.

Guaranteeing the food supply chain is essential, but in In mid-April the harvesting of summer fruit and vegetable crops such as water melons, peaches and cherries begins, and in normal circumstances many of those employed in harvesting are migratory workers from northern Africa and Eastern Europe, but in the present situation they have not been able or willing to make their way to Spain due to travel restrictions and the closure of the country’s borders.

Another possible result of the crisis, perhaps rather less foreseeable, is a surge in the number of dogs abandoned when the lockdown is eventually lifted, after people adopt them during the emergency en masse simply in order to have a valid excuse to leave their homes a couple of times a day!

This article above also deals with the problems being experienced by local charities forced to close their shops and with no means of raising funds; if you want to donate, all of the bank and paypal details for some local animal charities can be found on this article.

But the grim reality of the current crisis was illustrated by new emergency legislation in Spain banning funeral wakes and restricting the number of mourners at cremations and burials to just three. The reasons are obvious, and the legislation also includes a ban on prices being raised, establishing that the bereaved may not be charged more than the rates published prior to the declaration of the state of emergency on 14th March.

Wednesday 1st April

7,719 new cases, total 102,136

864 fatalities, total 9,053

22,647 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 1,041 cases, 37 fatalities, 43 recoveries

Much was made in Murcia of the fact that at last the number of recoveries in the Costa Cálida exceeded the number of fatalities, but at a national level, although there were fewer new cases reported the message is now clear that this is the least reliable of all the key data, and the rise in the daily death toll ensured that there was no relaxation among the general public.

Even in Murcia, great emphasis was placed on the fact that the condition of approximately 30,000 more patients or potential patients is being monitored by telephone, but on the positive side the number of people currently in intensive care remained steady at 57. This came as some relief for the health service, where staffing levels had been reduced by at least 225 health professionals having tested positive.

However, more protective equipment for those in the healthcare sector became available with the arrival of over 1.5 million facemasks and large quantities of protective gloves, medical gowns and other items, and at the same time, 286 newly qualified doctors in their first year of residency at hospitals in the Region of Murcia have been pressed into emergency service and are treating patients in the “front line”, many of them working double shifts at medical centres and hospitals.

All of this makes it as essential as ever to obey the lockdown restrictions, a task which was made slightly easier on Wednesday by a warning for possible heavy thunder and hailstorms, but amazingly the regional health authority have had to report 17 patients to the police for disobeying strict quarantine orders!

Meanwhile, despite the economic shutdown causing an estimated 90 per cent of all construction activity in Murcia to grind to a halt, demand in the agriculture sector meant that around 70 per cent  of trucks and lorries remained on the roads, mostly ensuring that the food supply chain from the fields and orchards to supermarket shelves remains operational: some reports suggest that sales of fresh fruit and vegetables have risen by over 50 per cent since the lockdown began!

Still on the theme of transport, it was reported that the shutdown is not likely to affect the work on the AVE high-speed rail line leading to Murcia (although so many dates have been mentioned over the last decade or so that even that forecast of early 2022 must be taken with a pinch of salt!), while lockdown-breaking cyclists were being identified by drones in and around the regional capital. Another man detained was found zigzagging along the street on an electric scooter with five times the permitted amount of alcohol in his bloodstream!

Elsewhere in Spain, while economists estimated the “loss” of between 10 and 20 billion euros per week to the country’s economy during the shutdown, it was announced that a hospital ship is to be sent by the navy to the north African enclave of Melilla, which is surrounded on its land borders by Morocco, equipped with 800 beds to ease the situation. Also among the on-board facilities are two operating theatres, 8 beds in an intensive care unit, an x-ray unit and various consultancy rooms, and the ship will set sail as soon as a full medical team has been assembled.

In the Costa del Sol town of Nerja, meanwhile, the Guardia Civil successfully detained a coronavirus patient who had escaped from the Hospital La Paz in Madrid, but for most of the population the routine of lockdown was by now becoming an all too familiar one, and one of the consequences is that people are spending even more time every day watching the television and surfing the internet. This in turn has coincided with an increase in the risk of people becoming addicted to online gaming and gambling sites, and in response the government has introduced a near-total ban on all publicity for such sites on the television, the radio and on sites such as YouTube: the ban restricts advertising of this kind to between 1.00 and 5.00 in the morning and will remain in place for as long as the state of emergency lasts.

While Spain continues in lockdown there is a tendency for other issues to be sidelined or even forgotten, but on Wednesday there was a reminder that in Murcia the condition of the Mar Menor remains a major concern when the national government recommended tripling the width of the proposed “green belt” around the lagoon. This would mean restrictions on agricultural practices including the use of fertilizers being extended to all locations within 1.5 kilometres of the shoreline, and the recommendation comes at a time when the latest water quality measurements make for worrying reading: the average depth of visibility in the Mar Menor was just 0.84 metres on 27th March, as opposed to 4.47 metres a year ago, the level of chlorophyll in the water is around 25 times higher than 12 months ago and the lagoon’s salinity is almost exactly the same as that in the Mediterranean, whereas in “normal” conditions it is between 15 and 20 per cent higher.

Thursday 2nd April

8,102 new cases, total 110,238

950 fatalities, total 10,053

26,743 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 1,084 cases, 42 fatalities, 45 recoveries

Again it was tempting to see positive signs in the data but the stand-out figure was the record number of 950 deaths during 24 hours. In Murcia another 5 were added to the total but at the same time the good news for the regional health service (SMS) was that the number of patients in hospital dropped by 17 to 287, with 78 people having been discharged to complete their recoveries at home and 45 more having been given the all-clear.

Astonishingly, despite the spread of the virus there was still news of people insisting on breaking the lockdown restrictions, one of the most striking examples being that of a street party in Alcantarilla which ended with two men arrested after attempting to stab police officers who forced them back into their homes. As the police performed their duty they were hampered by glasses, ice cubes, flower pots and beer cans raining down on them from balconies and windows, and a second offender soon joined the first man detained after he attempted to retrieve his mobile phone, which he had left in the street when retreating to his home.

This is far from being an isolated incident and in the municipality of San Javier, where the C-101 jet aircraft adorning the roundabout next to the Dos Mares shopping centre will be illuminated in green every night until the pandemic is declared to be over as a gesture of solidarity with medical staff, the local police force has issued as many as 255 fines for disobeying the lockdown since it was imposed two and a half weeks ago.

Also in San Javier, green hearts have been appearing on balconies and along the streets, also in support of medical staff, while in Mazarrón the Town Hall promised to clamp down on second home owners travelling to the coast for the weekend and nearby in the Condado de Alhama golf resort development two people who have tested positive for Covid-19 were fined for driving around the urbanization!

One of the main stories of the day, though, was the publication of the unemployment figures for the month of March, which were as catastrophic as had been predicted due to the mass destruction of jobs caused by Covid-19.

On the face of it, an increase of 5,827 in the number of people registered as out of work in Murcia is perhaps not as high as some had feared, representing a rise of 5.74 per cent during the month, and indeed this is one of the least significant rises in the 17 regions of Spain.

But at the same time it is reported at national level that while the number of people registered as unemployed rose by 302,000  - a record monthly increase - the number of people making social security contributions fell by 833,000. Taking into account also the number of workers who are “hibernating” due to businesses being closed during the lockdown, it is estimated by many observers that the “real” current jobless total has risen to over 5 million across the country, as opposed to the official total of 3,548,312.

Further worries in Murcia stem from reports that thousands of employees affected by ERTE temporary employment regulation schemes are at risk of not receiving the wage supplements due to them in April, due to the administrative offices dealing with the schemes finding it impossible to deal with all of the claims in time for them to have been accepted and registered in time. Their payments will arrive eventually but in many cases not until May

Meanwhile, in terms of the pandemic itself, there have still been fewer coronavirus deaths in Murcia than in any other of Spain’s 17 regions, but the seriousness of the crisis is more than apparent in the Region’s hospitals and other facilities involved at the front line of the struggle to contain Covid-19. For example, the devastation caused by the coronavirus in Madrid is such that even with emergency morgues having been opened the number of deaths is too high for funeral directors to be able to cater for all of them, and as a result 20 dead bodies forming part of the “overflow” in the national capital are currently awaiting cremation at funeral parlours in Murcia.

In the struggle to contain the pandemic pharmacists in Murcia are offering home delivery of medication for members of the public who have tested positive or are in quarantine, extending their help to those of reduced mobility, while six hotels have now been made available as accommodation for extra medical staff in Murcia, Cartagena, Lorca, Caravaca de la Cruz, Yecla and San Pedro del Pinatar. But anyone making their own facemasks and offering them to medical staff should desist from doing so, the SMS insisted, because the masks do not provide the required level of protection for use in hospitals and health centres.

Elsewhere in Spain it was announced that the government is planning to track 40 million mobile phones in order to make informed lockdown decisions, and after the controversy over a similar pilot scheme last November great efforts are being made to reassure the public that measures are included to ensure that the survey details are anonymous and the movements of individual people are not recorded. This time it seems unlikely that serious objections will be raised as data are gathered for eventually considering a lifting of the lockdown restrictions, and a similar, smaller-scale study, has already suggested that the number of pedestrians on the streets of Spain has fallen by 95 per cent over the last three weeks. 

Unusually, the news that petrol prices have fallen to a 3-year low was greeted with an almost complete lack of enthusiasm! After all, in normal circumstances this would be welcome as the Easter school holidays begin, but with all travel plans abandoned until after Easter the effects on motorists’ pockets will barely be noticed!

In fact, among the few economic beneficiaries of the coronavirus pandemic in this country are the manufacturers of beer, wine, stuffed olive, crisps, chocolate, anchovies and ice-cream! Export sales may have taken a severe hit, but now that the initial run on toilet roll in supermarkets is over these are the products showing the largest sales increases across the country as those confined to their homes seek comfort foods and those which perhaps re-create the feeling that they are in their neighbourhood bar or café as they contact family and friends: flour sales have also soared as people set up their own tapas bar snacks at home!

Friday 3rd April

7,472 new cases, total 117,710

932 fatalities, total 10,935

30,513 recoveries in total

Region of Murcia: 1,145 cases, 46 fatalities, 90 recoveries

In Murcia the number of recoveries suddenly doubled to 90 and the figure relating to patients admitted to hospital remained steady at 284, but one of the four new deaths was the first victim to be a member of the regional health service. The deceased was a 59-year-old doctor of Venezuelan nationality with previously existing medical conditions who worked at the Quirón hospital in Murcia and died in the Reina Sofía. 

At a national level the daily death toll topped 900 for the second day in a row and while the number of new cases reported remains constant the total is now higher than in Italy. In addition, it is widely accepted (even by the government) that this is an unreliable statistic, due to insufficient testing being performed in this country. However, there remain hopes that a peak in the level of active cases is being reached and that downward pressure on the curve can now be exerted.

However, geographers warned that any hopes that the warmer temperatures in spring will help eliminate Covid-19 are unfounded (although maybe when the thermometers show 35 or 40 degrees in summer this will prevent the virus from multiplying), and with additional respirators purchased from China not likely to arrive in Spain before June an agreement has been reached with car manufacturer Seat by which its production is being adapted to manufacture 300 machines a day. 

With the demand for new motor vehicles having plummeted the motors which are normally used in windscreen wipers are being adapted to produce medical equipment, and another deal struck with the medical equipment company Hersill brings the daily production capacity up to 400. 

Elsewhere a supermarket in Torrevieja is among those which now take the temperature of customers before allowing them inside, in order both to protect them and to make them feel safer when venturing out from their lockdowns in order to stock up on provisions. A staff member wearing protective clothing is in charge of using an infra-red thermometer at the entrance to the shop, and the owner explains that both the ten employees and the customers are grateful for his concern before joking that some people come along every day just to have their temperature taken! 

But as another hard week for Spain comes to an end, the most important thing to underline is that despite some fine weather being forecast at last in the Costa Cálida the appearance of sunshine must not be taken as a cue to head for the beach. It is essential not to become complacent as the lockdown nears the end of its third week, and the more people abide by the rules the sooner it will be possible to lift the restrictions. 

Research carried out in Germany and published this week has underlined just how contagious Covid-19 is, with the main findings being that it multiplies not only in the lungs, as did the SARS virus in 2002, but also in the throat, where it is incredibly active during the first week in which symptoms are apparent. 

In fact, it reproduces 1,000 times faster than the previous SARS virus, and when this is combined with its presence in the throat it makes infection far more common through coughs and sneezes: for this reason the WHO recommends that anyone experiencing a cough should wear a facemask.

Another startling finding is that once it is inside a human cell a coronavirus can produce as many as 100,000 copies of itself in just 24 hours, and the ease with which Covid-19 is transmitted from one person to another without the transmitter being aware that he or she is a carrier explains how single events such as the football match played by Valencia against Atalanta in northern Italy on 19th February helped to cause the spread of the outbreak in Spain. 

Similarly, it can be said with hindsight that massive events like the marches on 8th March (International Women’s Day) were probably instrumental in Spain becoming one of the worst affected countries during the pandemic. It is impossible to calculate how many people were infected during the events held across the country, but it is unlikely to be mere coincidence that the number of cases in Madrid began to shoot up over the following days, the patients including prominent political leaders who attended demonstrations. 

On Friday afternoon a heated debate broke out when the Spanish government issued a recommendation that masks should be worn when shopping, not to protect the wearer against catching the virus, but to stop it being spread further. At the sme time an interesting video showing the ineffectiveness of home-made masks was published on social media and new research claimed that the virus can travel much further than formerly believed when a contagious individual sneezes. The WHO will now launch a new investigation of its own. Click for this story and to watch the video

So, three weeks into lockdown and it seems inevitable that there are AT LEAST another three weeks to go. The government is preparing to present a motion in Congress next week to prolong the state of emergency and the lockdown for another fortnight until at least 26th April, a measure which will surely gain approval despite fierce recent criticisms of the way the emergency is being handled from opposition parties, and it is important to remember that every day confined to the home means that there is one fewer to go before life in Spain finally begins to return to something resembling normality. 

One thing is for certain: Easter Week of 2020, which is now beginning, will be remembered for a long time in Spain but not for positive reasons. All processions and celebrations are cancelled, of course, and never since the Civil War has the Friday of Sorrows (3rd April this year and a local holiday in Cartagena) been celebrated in such subdued fashion. 

Finally, another huge thank you to all of those who have supported the decision to change this bulletin to a paid model, not a decision taken lightly after 11 years of free service.

Your contribution will enable us to continue writing about the Region of Murcia in English, and we'll be honest with all of you because you have chosen to support this initiative; without this injection of liquidity you have given us, the product faced a very uncertain future due to the collapse in advertising revenue which followed the lockdown announcement.

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