Health Secretary Says Spain Can Avoid New Lockdown

SILVIA CAZON, Spain’s Secretary of State for Health, has claimed that Spain can avoid a full national lockdown despite fears of a third wave alongside the new British mutant strain.

Speaking to Hoy por Hoy, Silvia Cazon said that Spain can implement “immediate measures” using “current instruments” to curb the rise in Covid cases without resorting to another national lockdown.

She said that while Spain is beginning to see a rise in cases possibly due to “the effects of greater mobility and relaxation” during the Christmas period, alternative measures to a national lockdown could be “applied with almost surgical precision”.

On the subject of the new “mutant” strain of the virus that has spread from its UK origin, Cazon said that it is “not dominant in Spain” and that all cases in the country can be directly linked to Britain. She said that the government will follow international advice by closely monitoring cases of the new strain within Spain to prevent its spread.

Cazon’s comments come as the regional health minister for Castilla y Leon, Veronica Casado, requests approval from the national government to impose a “short but effective” full lockdown in her region.

Casado claims that the “terrible” rise in cases over recent days can be curbed by a “very effective” short term home confinement period. She said “Sometimes it is better to carry out a strict confinement of 14 days and stop it than to apply intermediate measures”.

Following the easing of restrictions over Christmas, Spain has seen Covid-19 cases rise by 30,759 over the weekend with 2000 hospital admissions for virus patients. On January 1st, 15% of Covid tests returned positive results in contrast to 10% on Christmas Day.

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