Fans To Be Allowed Back To Football Stadiums As Infection Rate Falls Again
The Spanish Minister for Sport, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, has announced that spectators will be allowed to return to football stadiums in areas of low or negligible infection rates from this weekend.
Speaking at a press conference, the minister said that up to 30% of a stadiums capacity could be used, with seat spacing throughout and obligatory mask wearing, in those areas where the coronavirus infection rate is at 50 or less cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Fans have not been allowed into stadiums since the start of the pandemic lockdown in March 2020.
The latest official Spanish government´s figures for the infection rate show that the national average is 166 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Indeed the only regions that have rates low enough to meet the conditions are Ceuta and Valencia.
Madrid’s infection rate of 267 per 100,000 inhabitants remain far off for a return of spectators in the regions football stadiums.
The 2020/21 season is finalising this week with final matches due as both Real and Athletico Madrid vie for La Liga championship title.
Football chiefs are hoping that with the pandemic receeding, stadiums maybe back to full or close to full capacity by the beginning of next season, which is due to start in August.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said last week that he hoped that the country would have reached the 70% ” herd immunity” threshold by August, thanks due to the accelerating vaccination rate.
To date Spain has received a total of 23,107,595 vaccine doses, (15,350,595 from Pfizer-BioNTech, 2,087,600 from Moderna, 5,397,000 from AstraZeneca and 272,400 from Janssen) of which 21,071,940 have been administered representing 30.7% of the population and 6,716,156 are now considered to be fully vaccinated, representing 14.2% of the population.
To date Spain has recorded 3,598,452 Covid-19 cases of which 79,281 have been fatal.
