Sanchez: “We Are Nearing The End” As State Of Alarm Set To Finish

The Spanish Prime Minister,Pedro Sánchez, has announced that the government will not extend the current state of alarm from 9th May, the date it is due to expire.

Speaking today, Tuesday 6th April, at a press conference at his official Moncloa residence in Madrid, he also said that with ‘prudent and conservative’ estimates, the scaling up of the country’s vaccination rollout programme will see 70% of the Spanish population immunised by the end of August.

The 70% threshold will cover 33 of Spain´s 47 million population and is considered a crucial milestone in reaching “herd immunity” within the community in order to end the pandemic.

“We are nearing the end” he said.

Sanchez, had orginally declared a state of alarm in March of last year, which remained in force for 96 days, before being reimposed in October for a 6 month period in order to curb the second wave of the virus.

The ending of the national state of alarm will mean that Spain´s 17 autonomous communities will be in the frontline will be able to make local decisions to combat any future surge – for example in the wearing of face masks or the imposition of curfews.

To date Spain has recorded 3,311,325 coronavirus cases of which 75,783 have been fatal.

As of yesterday, Monday 5th April, Spain has received a total of 9,703,645 doses of Covid-19 vaccines of which 8,743,694 have now been administered including 2,852,806 of the all important second jab.