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Spain is struggling to save its struggling tourism industry after the UK government imposed a 14-day quarantine on everyone arriving from the country.
Government officials insist that the virus is under control and want certain areas to be exempt from the UK’s self-isolation order, including the Balearic Islands.
Around 18 million Britons traveled to Spain in 2019, almost a quarter of all arrivals in the country.
But junior health minister Helen Whately has defended the quarantine.
Ms Whately told the BBC that after all the “sacrifices” made during the shutdown, the UK could not risk returning to a situation of rising virus rates across the country.
The infection rate in Spain has increased in recent days. While the outbreak remains under control in many parts of Spain, certain areas, particularly Catalonia in the northeast and the neighboring region of Aragon, have seen a large increase in infections.
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According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the country registered 39.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the past two weeks.
The United Kingdom and neighboring France have a figure of 14.6 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.
What is the latest in Spain?
Local authorities have issued stay-at-home orders for some four million residents in Catalonia, including the regional capital of Barcelona. On Monday, the President of Catalonia, Quim Torra, said that even stricter blocking measures could be imposed if the number of infections did not improve in the next 10 days.
“We are facing the 10 most important days of summer,” he said. The region recorded 5,487 infections last week compared to 3,485 the previous week, Torra told reporters, adding that the situation was “very critical.”
But Torra also assured people that the region was still safe for tourists. Speaking in English, she said that “steps had been taken” and that people “can visit most of the region safely.”
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Spain imposed one of the strictest blockades in Europe in March to combat the coronavirus. Tight restrictions helped curb the infection rate, but also severely damaged the economy, particularly tourism.
Tourism represents approximately 11% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), and a large number of visitors come from the United Kingdom.
As a result, the country has been desperate to bring visitors back to help revive struggling cities and resorts.
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On Monday, Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto said the government was working with UK authorities to exclude the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands from quarantine, as both regions have low infection rates.
“What we would like is for quarantines to be lifted on the islands as soon as possible, and we hope it will be today rather than tomorrow,” he said.
But a UK government source later told the BBC that “there were no plans” to introduce airlifts with the Spanish islands to exempt them from the 14-day quarantine.
Other Spanish leaders have criticized the UK quarantine movement as disproportionate, given the low infection rate in many areas.
Ximo Puig, leader of the Valencia region, told a local radio station that “our epidemiological data is better than that of the United Kingdom,” and said the quarantine order “was not warranted.”
Madrid Barajas airport currently bears little resemblance to the frenetic travel hub that it normally is at this time of year.
It has been calmer than normal for several months, but two days after the UK implemented a new quarantine for travelers from Spain, it was strangely empty.
Many check-in desks in Terminal 4, which handles most flights to and from the UK, were closed. A British Airways flight at noon to London Heathrow had just a couple of dozen passengers, and many of them on board were Spaniards living and working in the UK.
Amanda Escuder-Martínez, a midwife who has to visit London every month for her work, was one of them.
His employer gave him a special waiver, which means he can avoid having to quarantine, but said he felt the new measure was disproportionate due to the UK’s own difficulties in controlling Covid-19.
“I’m not very happy about that,” he said, before registering for the flight.
How did the pandemic affect the country?
Spain was hit hard. The latest figures released on Friday show that the country had confirmed 272,421 cases and 28,432 deaths.
However, there is concern that the death toll could be much higher. On Sunday, the Spanish newspaper El País reported that the actual figure could be 60% higher than the figures from the health ministry.
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At the national level, Spain only includes the death of people who tested positive for the virus.
By including regional numbers of those suspected of having Covid-19, El País calculated a total of 44,868 deaths. This would mean that Spain has the second highest number of deaths in Europe, just behind the United Kingdom, which has registered 45,837 deaths.
The Spanish Ministry of Health has insisted that it has followed international protocols to count deaths.
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