A new State of Alarm has been introduced in Spain. This blog post is to inform you on its current conditions and what to expect during the next months.
New Restrictions
At this moment, the new State of Alarm does not come with another confinement of Spain’s populace to their homes. For now, the objective is to have a nationwide curfew in place and to give the governments of the autonomous regions in Spain the power to implement more restrictions in their territory in order to control the ever-rising curve of the pandemic.
Timing
The new State of Alarm comes into effect this afternoon and will be in place for 15 days, until November 9th. Congress will be asked to approve a possible extension until May 9th this week.
The six months extension the government wants to achieve is based on the opinions of scientists and experts regarding what is needed to lower the contagion count and get this pandemic under control.
A New Confinement?
The big question everybody is asking themselves is whether or not there will be a new confinement of people to their homes. For now, there is no general confinement projected, but it may well happen either for all of us or parts of the population. With this State of Alarm in place, each autonomous region can decide to confine their whole territory or parts of it if and when necessary.
The Curfew
At this moment, movement is limited but only at night. During the day people can move around freely, but a national curfew is in place that prohibits being outside of your home from 23:00 to 06:00 h. The autonomous communities can apply a different schedule, moving it by one hour.
Catalunya for example has decided on a curfew from 22:00 h to 06:00 h.
There are exceptions which allow you to be outside during curfew. These include buying medicine, returning from work and taking care of elderly people.
Other Restrictions and Exceptions
Gatherings of people who are not living together are limited to a maximum of 6.
The only autonomous community that does not have a curfew is the Canary Islands.