Covid restrictions "will have to stay in place"

BarcelonaThis week the Generalitat will announce that it will extend the restrictions in force against covid-19, which end on February 7. No substantial changes are expected because the Secretary General of the Health Department, Marc Ramentol, has warned that most measures "will have to stay in place". "We should not expect a noticeable relaxation," warned Ramentol, who added that the third-wave peak in ICU bed occupation will be reached in the next few days, with over 700 patients in intensive care (compared to 592 in the second wave) and the decline in new infections is "slow" which is why the health system is "at very high risk". All this comes after this weekend the number of fines handed out for not complying with restrictions increased 15% (352 more sanctions than last weekend).

Ramentol explained the restrictions for February will be reviewed, but has already advanced that health care activity is "compromised", because of the increase in work due to coronavirus has forced hospitals to cancel between 20% and 30% of surgical interventions. This pressure, added to the British variant, which accounts for 9% of the infections analysed in Catalonia, reduces the chances of reducing the measures. The coordinator of the monitoring unit of covid-19, Jacobo Mendioroz, has warned that in some areas, such as the Pla d'Urgell and l'Aran, the percentages of positive cases are becoming "stable". "The trend is not as downward as elsewhere," he warned, which is "worrying".

As for vaccination, 65,520 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have arrived, equivalent to 56 trays, six less than were due. In the coming hours, 8,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine should be delivered. Ramentol has said that they have failed to receive about 40,000 doses in recent weeks, which is why they have used the 20,000 they had in reserve in the refrigerators, and has insisted that now the priority is administering the second dose of the vaccine to care home residents, staff and healthcare professionals.

Non-compliance and good weather

While the forecast is to lengthen the restrictions, the Catalan police - Mossos d'Esquadra - have warned that the fines for breaking these rules are on the rise. The corps spokesperson, Commissioner Joan Carles Molinero, explained that the 15% rise in sanctions - in total about 2,800 - is evidence of non-compliance during the weekend. Molinero spoke of several parties on Friday and Saturday nights: he gave the example of Barcelona and Molins de Rei, where groups between 50 and 130 people gathered outdoors to drink and party. The police also detected celebrations in a bar in Sants - where they had acted before -, in a hairdresser's in Nou Barris and in a brothel in Campmany, as well as about twenty French nationals in a cottage in Bellestar, in the Alt Urgell.

Molinero has discarded that Catalonia is a place people come to for parties or raves. He argued that the people who had rented the house in Bellestar were Catalans who knew the French. On the other hand, the commissioner of the Mossos has admitted that many young people take advantage of the weekend to skip the municipal confinement and the curfew. The Minister of Home Affairs, Miquel Sàmper, has added that the good weather has contributed to the fact that also more sanctions have been handed out in natural parks. Sàmper has remembered that the Mossos have begun to inspect the travellers of the trains that arrive from outside Catalonia and have intensified checkpoints on highways to verify that the perimetral confinement is observed.