National State Of Alarm And Madrid Curfew Ends
The state of alarm that was introduced by the Spanish government to combat the pandemic in October 2020, came to an end at midnight last night.
The competencies for enforcing health protocols and mobility restrictions now moves to the country´s 17 autonomous communities.
The authority for any restrictions on citizens rights, including the imposition of curfews, limits on social gatherings or local health zone controls will be in the hands of the regional health authorities and local administrations.
As an additional measure, last week the central government passed a royal decree that gives the Supreme Court the final word on all decrees concerning restrictions, so that should a lower court refuse to authorize a restriction – for example by the Madrid regional government then they can then appeal for a final ruling to the Supreme Court to decide the matter.
Speaking last week the central government´s coronavirus supremo and director of the Health Ministry’s Coordination Center for Health Alerts, Fernando Simón, said: “The end of the state of alarm does not mean the end of control measures.”
Although the latest central government official Covid-19 infection figures show that the trend is a downward one and now below the 200 per 100,000 inhabitants level for the first time since July 2020, the rates still remain above the critical 250 threshold indicating “extreme risk” in 6 of Spain´s 17 regions.
Madrid´s rate of 317 per 100,000 is the second highest in the country – behind the basque Country´s 447.
The downward trend is helped by the increased rate of vaccinations.
As of the latest figures to 7th May, Spain has received a total of 21,100,665 doses of Covid-19 vaccines (13,647,075 from Pfizer-BioNTech, 1,776,000 from Moderna, 5,397,000 from AstraZeneca and 272,400 from the one dose Janssen) of which 19,048,132 jabs have now been administered so that 5,956,451 people have now been given full immunisation – 12.6% of the population.
With the end of the state of alarm the Madrid regional government lifted the midnight curfew and is ending the ban on social getherings between members of two different households.
Capacity restrictions of 50% in bars and restaurants remain in place as do limitation capacity of 75% remain in shopping centres, theatres and cinemas.
In addition the perimetral lockdown of 14 of the regions 286 basic health zones remain in place for another two weeks.
To date Spain has recorded 3,567,408 coronavirus cases of which 78,792 have been fatal.
