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BARCELONA: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared on Sunday (October 25) a national state of emergency and a curfew covering all of Spain except the Canary Islands, in an attempt to stem a second wave of coronavirus cases.
The new state of emergency will last until early May, Sánchez added.
“The situation we are going through is extreme,” he said in a televised speech after a cabinet meeting called to discuss the crisis.
The emergency measures came in response to calls from regions to impose curfews to combat the rise in coronavirus cases, after Spain became the first European country to register more than a million cases on Wednesday. of the virus.
Spain imposed one of the toughest blockades early in the pandemic and then relaxed measures over the summer.
But like many other European countries, it has experienced a second wave in recent weeks and now has one of the highest numbers of infections in Western Europe. The total number of cases rose to 1,046,132 on Friday, while the death toll approached 35,000.
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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 will 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.
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Government officials at all levels are reluctant to impose another total home closure and industry shutdown, given the weakened state of the Spanish economy, which has plunged into a recession and seen its unemployment 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 3 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.
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