Salvador Illa confirmed today in a press conference about the Moderna vaccine, that there will be no new home confinement to combat the third wave of the pandemic in Spain or the islands. Illa was blunt today and assured that the central Executive does not even consider a new state of alarm that empowers communities to keep their citizens at home.
Despite acknowledging that the current epidemiological situation is causing a lot of concern, and that they are not hiding the fact that there are complicated weeks ahead, he insisted that the autonomous regions already have a "sufficient range of measures at their disposal" to try to tackle the situation.
"In fact with these measures we will bend the curve," he said in reference to the 'artillery' that the state of alarm, which is in force until May 9th, gives to regional Governments, such as the perimeter closure of municipalities or the communities themselves, or the imposition of curfews, in addition to the closure of shops and hotels and a reduction in capacities that could already be decreed by the autonomies.
Since the end of the first state of national alarm ended on June 20th, the Government of Pedro Sánchez has been reluctant to lockdown the population again, even if it was only in selected communities, including at the beginning of November during the peak of the second wave, when some autonomies reached close to a thousand cases. Then, several territories, and particularly Asturias, insistently but unsuccessfully demanded that they issue a new decree of state of alarm that would enable the regional executives to a implement a harsh confinement such as that experienced in March and April.
The decision of several European governments to impose lockdown to their inhabitants has not changed the opinion of the Moncloa technicians who, despite pressure from epidemiological experts, insist that a new total confinement would cause damage to the economy worse even than the one caused by the lockdown last spring.
Illa's announcement that the Government will not even consider the home confinement occurred at almost the same time that the CIS made public that 60% of Spaniards believe that both the central Executive and the autonomies should have taken more drastic measures to contain the pandemic. Only 25% of those surveyed consider the measures implemented so far by the administrations as "adequate".
