Spain prepares to enter a state of emergency amid rising coronavirus

The PRIME MINISTER OF SPAIN, Pedro Sánchez, has called a cabinet meeting to prepare a new state of emergency to stop the growing coronavirus infections.

The measure could impose curfews and other restrictions across the country.

The Sánchez government said Saturday night that most of Spain’s regional leaders agreed to a new state of emergency and that the cabinet meeting was to study its terms.

The state of emergency grants the national government extraordinary powers, including the ability to temporarily restrict the basic freedoms guaranteed in the Spanish constitution, such as the right to free movement.

The government of Spain has already declared two states of emergency during the pandemic. The first was declared in March to apply strict house confinement throughout the country, close shops and recruit private industry for the national fight for public health. It was lifted in June after dominating the contagion rate and saving hospitals from collapse.

The second went into effect for two weeks in Madrid to force the capital’s reluctant regional leaders to impose travel limits on residents to curb an outbreak in which new infections were growing exponentially. It lasted until Saturday.

Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa has said his agency and regional health officials are studying how to apply nighttime curfews, perhaps like the 9pm curfews that already exist in major French cities.

The state of emergency would make it easier for authorities to take swift action, preventing a judge from approving many of the restrictions. Some judges have rejected efforts to limit movement in certain regions, causing confusion among the public.

Government officials at all levels are reluctant to impose another total closure of homes and industry, given the weakened state of the Spanish economy, which has plunged into a recession and seen its unemployment levels skyrocket in recent months. .

Spain this week became the first European country to exceed one million officially registered Covid-19 cases. But Sánchez admitted in a nationally televised speech on Friday that the true number could be more than three million, due to testing gaps and other factors.

Spain reported nearly 20,000 new daily cases and 231 more deaths on Friday, bringing the death toll from the pandemic to 34,752.