"We want to, and indeed must, avoid resorting to a new lockdown at home", says Pedro Sánchez

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

The President of the Government declared that Spain and all of Europe are under an obligation to apply new measures or make existing ones tougher to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

In the case of Spain, Pedro Sánchez recalled that the official figure of the number of people infected has risen this week to over 1 million, and that the seroprevalence studies undertaken show that the real number of people who have been infected exceeds 3 million.

Furthermore, the number of notified cases 24 hours is double that of the worst day of the first wave, although the figures for those admitted to hospital or intensive care are lower than then because we have gone from performing 30,000 PCR tests a day in the early weeks to more than 100,000 at present. "In the first week of October, we hit a new record of more than 800,000 diagnostic tests of active infections", said the President of the Government.

Pedro Sánchez stated that the arrival of the cold weather and the rate of seasonal respiratory diseases such as flu conform to a context that is propitious for the spread of the epidemic which means a return to pressure on the health system, and hence the regional governments have made an effort to adopt additional measures with a view to halting transmissions.

However, the President of the Government stressed that the spread of the virus has not gone away, and hence the aim is to step up actions to flatten the curve together. "The situation is serious. But between us all, we must act with determination, with the utmost social discipline and the necessary and essential unity. We must protect the public health of everyone and all stand united against the virus".

Avoid a new lockdown

Foto: Pool Moncloa/JM CuadradoPedro Sánchez argued that the situation is not comparable with the events of 14 March, which forced us to decree a general lockdown at home. "We can manage to halt the spread of the virus without stopping life going on", and with less sacrifice because we are much better prepared for this second wave - we are performing more tests, the health system has more material and society is more aware of the channels through which it is spread.

In this regard, he declared that Central Government, the regional government and the local authorities have no interest in imposing more limitations than those that are essential to avoid the spread of the pandemic. "We want to, and indeed must, avoid at all costs resorting to a new lockdown at home, such as we went through in the early weeks of spring".

Four alert levels for regions and proportional measures

The President of the Government positively rated both the work carried out by the regional governments and autonomous cities, such as the agreement reached on Thursday at the plenary session of the Inter-territorial Council of the National Health System, which included the participation of the Ministry of Health, and led to the establishment of risk levels, depending on the specific situation in each region at any given time, and measures in line with each of these.

Specifically, four risk levels have been defined - low, medium, high and extreme - according to the different technical indicators. The first of these markers is the number of cases detected per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days. Accordingly, a ratio of fewer than 25 cases is considered a low risk and above that, a medium risk. A rate of 150 cases will be considered a high risk and, if this exceeds 250 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, an extreme risk. Levels in the last seven days, the specific incidence among those over the age of 65, the percentage of positive test results and the percentage of cases that are traceable, in other words, tracing the origin of the infection, will also be taken into account.

Foto: Pool Moncloa/Borja Puig de la BellacasaThe second indicator will be the level of occupancy of hospital services and intensive care beds. If the number of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients exceeds 15% of all hospital beds occupied and 25% in the case of intensive care beds, the risk will be considered to be very high.

According to the situation in each region in this "traffic light" of alerts - as Pedro Sánchez called them - certain measures will be adopted, which may range from the proportional reduction of capacity or meeting in low and medium risk levels to the suspension of non-essential activities in a high risk level. If a region reaches level four (extreme), it may, for example, request the declaration of the state of emergency. Each autonomous region or city will decide which measures to adopt and when, which it must previously notify to the Ministry of Health.

Pedro Sánchez proposed "a collective challenge" for the coming weeks: to reduce the current accumulated rate of 348 cases per 100,000 inhabitants to below 25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

To achieve this, he called, in addition to the coordinated mobilisation of the public authorities, for citizen collaboration. "We can once again contain the virus if we cooperate, with resistance, with social discipline, with team spirit and with a scent for victory".

Specifically, the President of the Government will convey this message of coordination and unity at the 23rd Conference of Regional Presidents, which will include the attendance of the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, and address the mobilisation of 140 billion euros under the Recovery Fund.

Non official translation