We must avoid falling into a loop of frustration

These days it is estimated that internal mobility in Catalonia will have increased significantly and that up to 930,000 vehicles, for example, will have left the metropolitan area. This is the first weekend in which travelling with your cohabitation bubble will be allowed and that this does not involve increasing social interaction, especially indoors. It will be very difficult to monitor everything and police controls have been announced in areas where more crowds of visitors can be expected, but here again the key will be individual responsibility and containment. As Clara Prats, researcher at the BIOCOM-SC of the UPC, explains, the epidemiological situation is not good but we are not in a peak but in a stagnation in the decline: "Now we can do more things than a few weeks ago after three months of sacrifices, but always in a responsible manner. We know how it works after a year of the pandemic. When the situation has been brought under control a little and restrictions are lifted, sometimes too soon, if precautions are not taken, contagions increase again and confinements and restrictions have to be tightened again. It is a loop of frustrations that has health, economic and also emotional consequences. Now that the end is within reach thanks to the slow but constant vaccination, it is worth holding on and taking advantage of these necessary breaths of air without falling into excesses.

In fact, France has just tightened restrictions, Germany has not withdrawn them, Italy did so last week and the situation in general in Europe is more than worrying. It is difficult to understand the behaviour of the virus because countries that seemed to have been spared from the third wave are now at the peak of contagions and hospitalisations. In Catalonia we have already passed the third wave and now we are trying to avoid the fourth wave or at least to delay it enough so that the effect of vaccination does not have too many effects in terms of serious cases and deaths. The good news is that this time, however, it will not affect care homes, since there the immunisation campaign is practically complete.

Without losing sight of this context, we must also bear in mind that this weekend's outings will be therapeutic for many people who will finally be able to go out into nature, to their second homes or to tourist accommodation in a change of routine that can eliminate anxieties and alleviate a little of the pandemic fatigue. In addition, it will also bring some relief to the tourism sector that has already lost the winter season and that at least will be able to see better conditions for spring. We have a hopeful horizon within reach that includes everything from the option of opening restaurants in the evening to being able to travel without any restrictions or further delaying the curfew. All this if the population really has self-control. As the heads of the Health and Home Affairs have been reminding us these days, what happens in the next few days may determine what happens during Easter and beyond.