Catalan Government extends restrictions one more week due to pressure on hospitals

BarcelonaThird extension. The Generalitat will ask Catalonia's High Court to extend curfew for another week, until August 6. This will also mean an extension to the 10-person limit on gatherings and will affect the 162 towns and cities most affected by the pandemic. In the next few hours, the Government will send the court the epidemiological reports to justify the measure and the new list of affected areas. As announced on Tuesday by government spokeswoman Patricia Plaja towns such as Sitges, Roses and Tàrrega will no longer be affected whereas Figueres, l'Ametlla del Vallès and Terrassa will be added to the list. The restrictions that apply in these towns also involve the closure of all establishments at 00.30, as in the rest of Catalonia.

The criteria followed by the Government to draw up the list is the same since it recovered the curfew for the fifth wave of the pandemic. The towns and cities affected by the measures are those with over 5,000 inhabitants and a cumulative incidence above 400 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days. It also includes towns whose data is below this threshold but are surrounded by towns where the curfew will be in place.

Changes in the list of municipalities with curfew in Catalonia:

Towns included in the list because they are surrounded by towns with high incidence are indicated with an asterisk.

Supreme Court rejects curfew in the Canary Islands

In recent weeks the Catalan government's legal services have studied several legal precedents to defend their requests for curfew from the courts. First came Valencia's High Court's endorsement of a curfew, then came the Supreme Court's backing on a ban on entering or leaving a town in Jaén. This Tuesday, however, the Supreme Court has overturned a curfew the Canary Islands' government requested, arguing that it was unjustified.

Thus, the Supreme Court rejects the appeal filed by the region after Canary Islands' High Court vetoed a curfew between 00:30 at night and 6 in the morning on the island of Tenerife, despite the fact that the incidence rate of covid on the island is the highest in the archipelago and 10% of hospital beds are occupied by covid patients, a percentage that increases to 23% in ICU. The Supreme Court has upheld the court's decision considering "there is no justification" to limit freedom of movement. In this sense, the Canary Islands' High Court considered that the most appropriate framework to pass such a measure was the state of alarm.

Despite the fact that the decision contradicts that taken by other courts so far - among them the Catalan High Court which has already backed the curfew twice in Catalonia - the Supreme Court emphasises that "there is no contradiction" between some decisions and others, because the measure was "supported by data" - contagions and hospital pressure - where a restriction like this has been ratified.

Increase in hospitalizations

Meanwhile, the Government has again shown its concern about the situation in health centres. The data of the last 24 hours show that hospital admissions are growing, but more slowly, while in ICU admissions continue to increase quite a lot: there are 35 critical people more than yesterday and the total has risen to 535.

Right now there are 2,237 covid patients in hospitals, two more than on Monday. In terms of infections, 5,487 new positives have been reported, while the pandemic indicators are falling: the speed of transmission of the virus (Rt) stands at 0.88 and effective potential growth at 976.