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ARCHIVED - Easter holidays still up in the air as Spanish health authorities fail to reach agreement about movement
The Health Minister has postponed the decision as although most Spanish regions are against easing restrictions, Madrid wants to open up borders and allow people to travel.
The Health Minister reiterated that her ministry is working to save lives, not holidays.
Official decisions on what will happen in Spain at Easter have been put off for a week as the regions haven’t managed to reach an agreement on the restrictions and safety measures to be put in place for the holidays.
The most awaited meeting of the week in the country, that of the Spanish Minister for Health with the regional health authorities on Wednesday (3 March), saw most of the regions agree that the borders between them should stay closed to avoid a repeat of the debacle of the Christmas holidays. Madrid, however, threw a spanner in the works by stating a desire to open its borders and allow free travel between Spanish regions.
With the devastating effects of Christmas travel and gatherings in the form of the third wave of Covid-19 still fresh in their minds, the leaders of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, Aragon and Murcia all expressed their desire to keep the regions closed, which is also national Health Minister Carolina Darias’ first choice. Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country were also in favour of leaving regional borders closed, and Andalusia, Galicia and the Canary Islands coincided in pushing for agreement on a common, nationwide strategy to avoid a fourth wave.
The head of the regional government of Madrid, however, has stated that it is still much too soon to decide on measures for the Easter holidays and said it makes no sense to “close for the sake of closing,” arguing that restricting movement between the regions hadn’t stopped the virus from spreading.
📢 @CarolinaDarias ➡️ Las medidas de limitación de la movilidad y de los contactos sociales serán los 2 grandes ejes que vertebren las propuestas frente a la #COVID19 para esta Semana Santa
— Ministerio de Sanidad (@sanidadgob) March 3, 2021
Objetivo ➡️ Dar una respuesta de país, homogénea y conjunta para salvar vidas#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/f46KFgeIaJ
Easter is an important holiday in Spain, with many people from the big cities ‘going home for Easter’.
There were about 15 million long-distance journeys made during the Easter holidays in 2019, according to the Spanish traffic authorities (DGT). With many people still hoping this won’t be a repeat of last year when the holidays saw Spain still in hard lockdown, all eyes are now set on 10 March, when the next meeting is due to be held and a final decision made.
Yet most of the regions agree that it would be best to ‘sacrifice’ the Easter holidays in order to be in a better position by the summer, with many eyes set on countries like the UK coming out of lockdowns and allowing foreign travel.
Having learned from its errors of over-relaxing restrictions last time around, the plans proposed by the Spanish government for the Easter holidays include a nationwide curfew between 10 pm and 6 am from 26 March to 9 April, restrictions on travel including regional border closures, limiting social gatherings to 4-6 people and banning mass events such as processions. Although she wants all the regions to reach an agreement and has therefore decided to give a week’s grace before announcing definite measures, the Health Minister did stress that once decided upon, they will be compulsory for the entire country.
The Spanish government’s goal is to get the accumulated incidence rate, currently at 159 per 100,000 residents, below 50 per 100,000 before removing restrictions on free movement and it argues that the proposed measures are the most effective. Darias stressed that her ministry is working to save lives, not holidays.