Majorca and Ibiza bring in new coronavirus lockdown rules as mayor warns islands are in ‘grip of second wave’
MAJORCA and Ibiza have brought in new coronavirus lockdown rules after the mayor warned that the islands are experiencing a second wave.
The number of cases has soared over the weekend with 252 hospital admissions in just three days.
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A spokesman for the Autonomous Committee for the Management of Infectious Diseases in the Balearic Islands, Javier Arranz, admitted yesterday that the regions were in the grip of a second wave but said it would not be as strong as the initial wave in March.
At a press conference, Mr Arranz said: "We are in a second wave, with a significant rise, which will last a few days."
Mr Arranz added that the islands were experiencing community outbreaks, not cases that have come from abroad.
“It is not an infection that comes from outside but is fully located here.”
Of the 252 people admitted to hospital, 222 are based in Majorca, more than double the number of new cases at the peak of the virus.
On March 28, 107 coronavirus cases were confirmed in Balearic Islands.
There are currently 33 people in intensive care compared to 23 who were admitted last Friday.
Mr Arranz admitted yesterday that there would be deaths to come and that several people aged between 20 and 50 are seriously ill.
At the press conference, Mr Arranz spoke about people he had seen sitting together on terraces without masks and warned young people about “risky activities”.
"Right now it's not about banning going to terraces, it's about doing things right," he stressed.
Depending on how the pandemic evolves Mr Arranz said that the Balearic Government would make new decisions on furthering restrictions.
However, he stressed that the health system was not in a critical situation and that the new cases were milder than that experienced before.
So far the islands have recorded a total of 5,219 with a sharp rise in cases over the last several weeks.
Health chiefs say new regulations have been in force since August 14 including the closure of all nightclubs and pool parties and earlier closing times for pubs.
On August 21 the Transport Secretary suggested that islands like the Canaries, Ibiza or Mallorca could be added to safe travel lists in the future.
Just weeks after the islands were added to the quarantine lists due to a large spike in cases in Spain, the Transport Secretary said in future he wanted to be able to look at data for regions, if possible.
At the time, the inclusion of the islands sparked uproar among tourists as the rates of infection were far below that of mainland Spain.
Mr Shapps raised hopes of a holiday on a Spanish island in the coming months as he said the Government were looking at how to make regional quarantines work.
He told the BBC: "The islands, particularly the Spanish islands, when Spain went into lockdown, we saw in one the numbers coming up and in the other set the numbers coming down – so we do need to be absolutely sure that you're capturing the disease as it actually is and sometimes it's not quite as straightforward as it sounds."
He added: "However, I think there is a case for regionalisation. I think it's harder to do within a country – people say, with France for example, why don't you just do this region and not the other?
"The answer is it's quite easy to travel about the country so we're not able to do it like that."
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