“People had a better time than they should have”

The director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health, Fernando Simón, has pointed to the past Christmas festivities and the public as responsible for the increase in infections and the growth of the accumulated incidence. Fact that is introducing the country to the third wave of covid-19.

“Whether we like it or not, we are all aware that at Christmas people had a better time than they should have. We could already propose whatever it was that we knew this was going to happen“, pointed out Simón.

The statements took place this Thursday, at the traditional press conference granted by the Ministry of Health, in which it notifies the progress of the covid-19 pandemic in Spanish territory. Spain, since last Wednesday, has notified 35,878 new cases of coronavirus, 16,676 of them diagnosed in the last 24 hours. Likewise, in the same period, 201 deaths from the virus.

Rule out a home confinement

Fernando Simón has insisted that, “for now”, it is not necessary to apply a strict confinement in Spain as the one decreed in the months of March and April.

However, it has warned that if the measures that the autonomous communities are applying to stop the transmission of the coronavirus they fail to reduce the incidence of infections, Intensive Care Units (ICU) can reach a critical situation.

“Tight confinement is on the table, but there is still room for other measures”, he asserted, to emphasize that what the autonomous communities are doing to stop the expansion of covid-19 puts Spain in a situation “very similar” to that of other European countries such as, for example, France or Germany.