Murcia Today Weekly Bulletin 26th September

Sunrise over the Mar Menor.........

Covid Spain

On Friday 18th September the total number of coronavirus cases in Spain was 640,040. By Friday 25th September the figure had risen to 716,481, an increase of 76,441 cases in a week. This is only marginally higher (2,727) than the previous week in which 73,714 cases were reported, and the Spanish Ministry of Health said earlier in the week that this pointed to a certain stabilisation and a "flattening off of the second wave."

However, selling that idea to the media doesn´t seem to have worked and although the comment was reported, there has been considerable scepticism in the Spanish media, who are collectively holding their breath for the winter to come.

There has certainly been an easing-off in the sudden surge of new cases in some regions; Catalonia for example, has reported a slow-down in new infections following a period of intensive testing in major urban areas (although on Saturday morning another new surge was reported), and in the Balearic Islands, for example, there has been a slowdown this week. A story that made the front page of the daily Mallorca press was the decision to allow popcorn back into cinemas; business owners had complained that the combination of a ban on food and drink and the social distancing restrictions which restricted the number of seats being sold, was making their businesses unworkable, so the regional government relented, and popcorn is now officially back on the menu in the Balearics!!!

However, Madrid is the region most worrying the national Government, as cases here are surging. On Friday Madrid notified 3,121 new cases, 782 of them diagnosed within the last 24 hours and 51 deaths.

The total numbers diagnosed since the pandemic began in Madrid totalled 219,592 and the total fatalities 10,188. At one point this week Madrid accounted for nearly 30% of new cases, and on Friday  23% of the total national cases diagnosed were in Madrid, Friday also being a record day in the capital with 51 deaths.

Last Friday the Madrid government announced that 37 health districts would be confined and restrictions tightened, and this Friday a further 8 districts were included, the measures affecting around 15% of the population of the capital, a million people.

But there has been widespread criticism of the decision, the national Government certainly amongst those who feel that the regional Government of Madrid should be confining a much larger percentage of the population to bring the spread of the virus under control. Their arguments focus around the IA rate, or accumulated incidence rate, which calculates the number of cases per 100,000 of population. At the moment, the average across Spain is 282 per 100,000; at a regional level Madrid, is in the lead, with 721; followed by Navarra, with 662; La Rioja, with 494; Castilla-La Mancha, 417; Murcia, 404; Aragon, with 380, and Castilla y León, 371. Although the figures on the graphic are slightly out of date as they were published on Thursday by the Andalucian Government, they do show the situation fairly well, with Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia, the Valencia Region, Canary Islands, Asturias and the Balearic Islands right down at the bottom of the table with very low levels compared to the regions which obviously have a greater problem.

And the IA rate is the basis for criticism of Madrid. The national Government sets an IA rate of 500 as being the point above which additional actions should be taken by a regional Government, but the Madrid government refutes that and says it will only act in areas above 1,000.

Madrid has 286 health districts, and 200 of these have IA rates over 500. In 47 health districts the IA rate is over 1,000 and in eight areas the IA rate is 1800. In the 200 areas with an IA rate of more than 500 are 4.7 million people, three out of every four who live in the capital, yet the Madrid Government is only taking additional measures in 45 areas, only affecting 1 million people, hence the disquiet in the national Government which has repeatedly requested that the regional Government declare a state of emergency and ask for help. The Madrid Government however, is defiant , and says that the measures taken are “adequate”, the president saying, “rather than confining Madrid our mission is to help people.”
The health minister is very worried about the situation and has warned repeatedly this week that “very hard weeks lie ahead for Madrid” but the national Government cannot impose measures on a region unless it declares a state of emergency or takes control of the health department under health legislation; the regional government must make its own decisions and this week the Madrid government has pointedly ignored the request of the national Government to confine larger areas of the city in spite of the Prime Minister meeting with the president of the region on Monday to offer collaboration. This entire bulletin could be dedicated exclusively to what’s been happening in Madrid this week, so extensive and obsessive has the coverage of the situation been in the Spanish media. Suffice it to say, that the measures are viewed as inadequate in many quarters and in spite of the purchase of large quantities of antigen tests to begin mass testing next week, the opening of “hotels” for those who must quarantine and have nowhere to go (homeless) or for medical staff unwilling to return home (another study published this week showed that 30% of the children and families of doctors had been infected by their parent working with covid patients during the first wave), and the many announcements by the Madrid Government about local initiatives, the expectation is that Madrid is on the verge of a major surge in cases.

And it’s not just Madrid; seven regions of Spain are considered to be red zones. A red zone is an area in which the number of cases is higher than 25 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants a day (350 per 14 days).

Navarra, with 662; La Rioja, with 494; Castilla-La Mancha, 417; Murcia, 404; Aragon, with 380, and Castilla y León, 371 are all considered red zones and the experts warn that in these areas some level of confinement should be implemented, even on a  voluntary basis; the longer it takes for movement to be restricted, the more severe the impact will be, they warn, but nobody wants to be confined and opposition to confinement is fierce.

Even Madrid this week has been the subject of aggressive protests against the movement restrictions currently imposed, part of the reason why the government is reluctant to impose further measures. Earlier this week four men were detained following a violent protest in Vallecas, Madrid, in which six people were injured four of them police, when rocks were thrown at the officers. Later those arrested, young men aged 17-19, were identified as being “extreme left” activists, but the protests and the arrests received significant airtime.

Since then, permissions to hold other public protests are being denied, amidst fears of violence.

Another story which was very well-covered by the Spanish media was a comment made by the Catalan president who pointedly warned Catalan residents against travelling to Madrid, saying that covid tests should be given to travellers to prevent them taking the virus back to other parts of the country. This has worrying echoes of the "madriphobia" which was prevalent before the summer holiday season when coastal regions were in a blind panic about the potential for contamination by the thousands of holidaymakers from Madrid flocking to the coasts for their holidays.

In spite of the warnings, the figures which matter most are the hospitalisations and fatalities. The main areas of concern are the growing numbers in intensive care in some regions, where occupancy has more than doubled in the last month. In most areas of Spain, particularly those at the lower end of the IA list above, there is currently little pressure on health facilities and hospitals are coping well, again, it’s Madrid that is under the most pressure.

Graphic; Hospitalisations by covid ward, ICU and deaths by region in the last 7 days
Hospìtalisations
There are currently 11,006 patients admitted for Covid-19 throughout Spain and 1,465 in an ICU, although in the last 24 hours there have been 1,358 admissions and 1,107 discharges. The occupancy rate for beds occupied by coronavirus is 9.5 percent and 17.17 percent in ICUs.

Madrid has the highest occupancy with 25.4% of the hospital beds occupied by patients with covid; while Castilla-La Mancha is at 14.2%; Aragon, Castilla y León, and La Rioja, at 11%, and Navarra and the Basque Country, at 10%. All other areas are below 10%.

For ICU occupancy, the percentage of occupied beds remains at 17%; and the highest rate is in Madrid at 40.1%; followed by La Rioja, which continues at 37%; Aragon, with 30.9%, and Castilla y León, with 26.3%.

Graphic showing fatalities; although growing, they are still  a long way from the levels recorded during the "first wave"
Fatalities
In the last 24 hours Spain has reported 114 more deaths from Covid-19 with a total of 475 in the last week. This brings the global number of deaths from Covid-19 in Spain to 31,232 people.

By region; 1,744 deaths in Andalusia (54 in the last week); in Aragon 1,360 (39 in the last seven days); in Asturias 343 (two in the last week); in the Balearic Islands 287 (eight in the last seven days); in the Canary Islands 220 (10 in a week); in Cantabria 233 (two in the last seven days); in Castilla-La Mancha 3,111 (22 in the last week); in Castilla y León 2,994 (51 in the last seven days); 5,829 in Catalonia (six in the last seven days); Ceuta, 10 deaths (one in the last week); in the Valencian Community 1,583 (24 in the last seven days); in Extremadura 564 (19 in one week); in Galicia 726 (21 in the last seven days); in Madrid 9,213 (159 in the last seven days); in Melilla four; in Murcia 200 (one in the last seven days); in Navarra 563 (10 in the last seven days); in the Basque Country 1,838 (30 in the last seven days); and in La Rioja 409 (16 in the last seven days).

Although statistics are dull, they do help us to learn from past mistakes and all over the world governments are struggling to cope with this crisis and handle it to the best of their ability. An interesting report was published this week examining the response of nine different governments from Europe and Asia as they emerged from lockdown and although it is heavy reading, once the first section has been navigated is highly insightful, analysing how the cultural differences between us make comparisons between the different countries difficult, but also provide lessons which can be learnt and applied as we work through the pandemic.

The report says "It seems intuitive that a country should not open up until it has a surveillance system of high quality in place and has confirmed that infections are being suppressed.Unfortunately, as shown in several countries, this principle has often been disregarded."

"Countries and regions have varied in their ability to implement effective find, test, trace, isolate, and support systems. Some locations in Asia, such as South Korea and Hong Kong, had systems that functioned well at the beginning of the pandemic, and other countries, such as Germany, were able to redeploy resources, whereas some countries, such as the UK and Spain, have struggled." For anyone prepared to wade through it, it's well worth reading.

It did highlight that in Spain, we came out of lockdown too soon, having failed to properly prepare for the inevitable problems that would follow as covid had not been eliminated completely, but as we know all too well, the economic considerations of businesses, particularly the hostelry and tourism sector,  impatience as the holiday season was starting and hotels were desperate to get business moving, pushed the government to relax mobility measures too soon.

The economic fall-out from this pandemic will affect us for years to come and is only just starting. This week the Spanish economy officially entered recession: a drop of 17.8% in GDP in second quarter due to Covid-19 the largest quarterly fall recorded since records began in 1970. In year-on-year comparison, the GDP collapse is 21.5%, compared to the fall of 4.1% in the previous quarter, and represents an almost five-fold increase compared to the second largest in this method of recording data, which first started in 1970. The second largest drop occurred at the start of the previous economic crisis, as the property sector collapsed and unemployment started to grow rapidly, when gross domestic product fell 4.4% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009, so the difference in the scale of what is occurring at this moment is unprecedented.

The only economic sector that remained positive in the second quarter was agriculture, which grew 3.6% quarterly, while industry fell by 19.1%; services, 18.3%; and construction, 21.9%.

Within services, only financial and insurance activities advanced, 0.9%, while commerce, transport and hospitality registered the greatest contraction of 39.6%.

So this shows that in spite of the tourism sector pushing hardest for restrictions to end and for Spain to leave the state of emergency, little was actually achieved, as cases began to rise so significantly again in August that travel restrictions to Spain and quarantines were imposed by so many countries that the international tourist season was an almost total wash-out almost everywhere; only domestic tourism saved the tourist sector from total disaster this summer.

Overnight stays in hotels fell by 64.3% during the month of August compared to the same month of the previous year, as confirmed on Wednesday morning by the National Institute of Statistics, INE, in its Hotel Tourism Situation report.

64.3% is the smallest fall of the spring/summer season; after the drops of 66.5% in March, 100% in April, 99.2% in May, 95.1% in June and a resounding 73.4% in July, the August figures are a significant improvement, with 5.8 million travellers in August, who made 16.8 million overnight stays, mainly in four-star establishments. These figures represent 45.2% and 35.7%, respectively, of the totals a year ago.

Spanish travellers saved the season from complete disaster
With long-haul travellers still out of the game and the number of European countries that did not recommend travel to Spain, the domestic market became the main supporter of hotel activity in August, with a total of 4.6 million visitors, compared to 1.2 million non-residents, with 12 million nights billed to the domestic market as opposed to 4.7 million to foreigners.

Cantabria (70.6%) and Principado de Asturias (68.2%) are the autonomous communities with the highest degree of hotel occupancy in August, due to their popularity with residents of Madrid and their proximity to the capital. Fear of lockdown, as occurred in Catalonia, promoted families to opt for principally low density rural accommodation, near to their permanent base, so that should a lockdown be announced, a quick dash home could be made easily.

But the big losers were areas traditionally dependent on international travellers, so the Balearic Islands invoiced 80.2% less during the month, with 74% less visitors than last year, the Canary Islands lost 71% of their hotel nights, 4.7 million nights less than in 2020 and Madrid lost 79% of its normal hotel trade during August, with prices falling by over 10%.

Even Murcia lost 51% of its normal tourist trade, only 71,691 Spanish residents and 10,157 foreigners visiting the region during August.

As a result, many hotels have already closed for the winter and here in the Region of Murcia 90 percent of Costa Calida hotels will be forced to close this winter. The head of the regional hoteliers association said it had been a difficult summer, “we are used to having to compete on price, compete on quality or on the location of our establishments, but we’ve never had to compete against fear before.”

Another blow for the hostelry sector came this week when the national Governemnt announced that the winter programme of Imserso holidays for pensioners was being cancelled.The Imserso scheme usually provides a welcome surge of revenue during the “down-season” coachloads of pensioners from all over the country helping to cover the costs of keeping hotels open and maintaining employment during the quieter months of the year. "It would be foolish for the Government to send millions of older people to travel at this time of a pandemic," stressed the minister making the announcement, requesting that the public "do not mix issues up", because - he insisted - "to make thousands of people travel at this time to save the tourism sector, would, I believe, be very foolish."

And it's not just hotels, the hostelry sector is also facing a difficult winter. On Thursday bars and restaurants in Alicante staged a noisy saucepan banging protest in Alicante city, handing over the keys of their bars to the council to demonstrate how close their businesses were to closing down.

The air travel sector is also suffering significantly, with many quarantines remaining in place, not least because countries which are advising against travel to Spain due to the situation here are themselves facing renewed waves of cases, such as the UK. This is affecting bookings on planes significantly, and readers report constant cancellations of flights and changes to flights already booked.

The result is that air traffic remains very low and passengers are unsure whether to even bother booking flights for the seasonal period as so many flights have been cancelled. We're now moving onto the winter schedules, and in some airports the effects of this will be job losses in not only the terminals themselves, but also the businesses supporting the whole structure; in flight catering, aircraft services, transport, freight handling, car parking etc.

Alicante-Elche airport has lost 70% of its traffic in relation to the same period in 2010 and has processed just 1.2 million passengers between July and September and just three million passengers between January and August.The airport is preparing to close the year with a traffic level last seen 25 years ago and, according to companies and experts, it will not recover the levels of 2019 - fifteen million passengers - until 2024, due to the covid crisis. The knock-on effect is that staff are now surplus to requirements and the jobs of about 3,000 people who work at the terminal in the various support roles and who, right now, are in different types of ERTE temporary redundancy schemes, are at risk.
This week the national government has been negotiating terms with the unions trying to establish a new agreement to replace the current conditions relating to the ERTE agreement  which concludes next week, but the unions are adamant that the government must maintain the scheme for all sectors, something the government says that it simply cannot afford to do and wants to limit purely to the tourism sector; the result is deadlock.
 

At Corvera airport the traffic loss is even higher; 80% for July and August, and the winter routes are practically non-existent to such an extent that rumours have been circulating that the airport is closing down for the winter.This is being denied by the operators themselves, who maintain that routes are continuing to run this winter, but social media users continue to report a constant drip drip of flight cancellations, complaining that they are often not even advised of cancellations and only find out that their flight no longer exists when seeing other passengers on the same flight complaining on social media about their flight being cancelled!.

We reported several weeks ago that airport operator Aena, was attempting to negotiate a 2.5 million euro payment from the regional government as compensation for the loss of revenue incurred operating the airport and La Verdad reported last weekend that these negotiations are apparently still ongoing and as yet have been unresolved. Aena maintains its commitment, the paper said, to continuing to operate the airport and keep it open, having no plans to close it, but with the UK quarantine still in place deterring visitors from booking flights to Murcia, or anywhere else in Spain for that matter, the regional government has to be prepared to subside the operator if the airport is to remain open. It must be reiterated, Aena is saying publicly it has no plans to close Corvera, but the regional government is also facing a surge in its own debt due to the additional costs incurred as a result of the covid crisis, so who knows what's really being said behind closed doors. All we do know, is that air traffic figures for the remainder of the year are going to look pretty tragic and jobs are also at risk here in Murcia as they are in Alicante.

 Spanish government passes law establishing basis for remote working or working from home.

On Tuesday the Council of Ministers gave the go-ahead to new telework regulation after reaching an agreement with the unions and social agencies following several months of negotiation.“Distance work”, “teletrabajo” or working from home will be considered in the same light as “regular” employment and, therefore, will be regulated by this new law. Employers will be obliged to ensure that staff are provided with suitable equipment, their expenses paid and their jobs protected, with the same employment rights maintained as for those working from office premises. Click for full article

Andalusia man arrested for coughing into the face of head teacher after students were obliged to quarantine

“Now you you are going to get infected with covid,” he shouted

The Guardia Civil has arrested a 31-year-old resident of La Carolina (Jaén), accused of assaulting the director of CEIP Manuel Andújar, whom he allegedly holds responsible for the closure of three classes as a result of the confirmed positive of one of the students.The man who has been arrested is the father of a girl who is affected by the preventive quarantine that has been imposed on all of the students in her year.

According to the complaint filed by the principal, the incident occurred on Tuesday when she was leaving the school.

The father of a second-year student came over to her and started to harangue her about the decision to quarantine the three classes of students, threatening to hit her with a crutch, insulted her and then coughed into her face shouting “now you you are going to get infected with covid ”.

These events occurred after the school had informed the families of the 66 minors that they had to remain in their homes in preventive quarantine and would be called to take a PCR test after it had been confirmed by the local health center that one of the students was covid positive.

The director, who suffered an anxiety attack as a result of the incident and is now on medical leave, decided to file a complaint on Tuesday evening.

The preventive quarantine is only affecting three classes of the second year of Primary, while the rest of the 600 schoolchildren who study at the center, can continue to go to school as normal.

On Thursday afternoon the Education Minister said that 2,852 bubble groups or school classes were in quarantine, of the 380,000 that exists across Spain. That's less than 1%, so although there have been dozens of reports about school classes quarantining, the figures are at an acceptable level and cases such as that reported above, few and far between. There have been teacher strikes this week, campaigning for safer conditions, but they're not receiving a lot of positive media support as everything possible within budgets and the capabalities of all involved in education to get through the crisis as well as possible is already being done.

Google Maps adds coronavirus outbreaks information to mapping facilities: Google maps will now offer an additional search option for covid-19 outbreaks and incidences. Click to read

The WHO urges countries to combat misinformation and coronavirus denial:On Wednesday the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to combat misinformation and denial of coronavirus because "it puts people's lives and health at risk", while "destroying trust in science, in institutions and in health systems ”.

"False information is making it difficult to respond to the pandemic, so we must join forces to fight it and promote information based on scientific evidence and public health," said WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who perhaps has made his comment after seeing some of the dangerous nonsense shared on expat facebook pages!.

Life expectancy in Spain drops by nearly one year due to Covid pandemic: Mortality rates are expected to return to normal in 2021. Click to read

Covid Murcia

On Friday 18th the Murcia region had 7097 active cases; this Friday the figure has risen to 8,127, an increase of 1030 active cases in a week, or 147 a day, taking into consideration the number of cured cases and deaths.

The total number of cases increased from 15,806, to 18,999 an actual increase of the number of cases detected by 3193 in a WEEK. This is slightly lower than the 3328 reported last week, so could be interpreted as good news, but the reason being given by the regional health ministry is that a lower number of PCR tests were undertaken in the early part of the week. This does tie in with the number of new cases reported which were a lot lower on Monday and Tuesday due to low numbers of PCR tests, but the regional health authority has warned that the number of cases being detected is likely to rise sharply in the next few days as the testers catch up with the outstanding tests.

We do know that the regional government has now purchased a million units of the new antigen tests, which are a lot cheaper and a lot quicker, and will start to be used in the worst affected municipalities from Monday onwards, as the regional government attempts to find as many positive cases as possible and get them into confinement. The new antigen testers are initially being used in Totana, Lorca and Jumilla, we're being told, although they may appear elsewhere as the week moves on and staff are trained in how to apply them.

These are the latest breakdowns by municipality and the "problem municipalities " stand out a mile, Totana, Jumilla and Lorca right up there at the top. Totana remains clear of any restrictions, but is voluntarily keeping its schoolchildren at home for another week, Lorca and Jumilla will remain in confinement for the moment, although Lorquí has now left confinement and its children are returning to school on Monday.

The graphic shows the number of cases per 100,000 of population by municipality. Totana is by far and away the municipality currently causing the most concern.

Note, the first figure shown below is the actual number of cases diagnosed in the last 7 days, the second is the IA rate for the last 7 days (number of cases per 100,000 of population): In brackets the number of cases is indicated as either a positive or negative compared to the situation on Thursday, taking into consideration that patients are recovering and being removed from the list all the time)

Abanilla 3/49 (+2) ( This means 3 cases in the last week and an IA rate of 49, so very low, with two more cases than yesterday)
Abarán 12/92 (+1)
Águilas 25/70 (+1)
Albudeite 0
Alcantarilla 78/185 (+9)
Aledo 4/391 (+3)
Los Alcázares 20/123 (-1)
Alguazas 38/394 (+9)
Alhama de Murcia 58/326 (-14)
Archena 45/233(-13)
Beniel 16/141 (-5)
Blanca 8/122 (-1)
Bullas 4/34 (-1)
Calasparra 1/9 (0)
Caravaca de la Cruz 40/174 (-5)
Cartagena 210/97(+19)
Cehegín 16/100 (+1)
Ceutí 35/296 (+3)
Cieza 47/134 (+4)
Fortuna 29/237 (+3)
Fuente Álamo 37/223 (+8)
Jumilla 224/918 (-11)
Librilla 9/169 (+1)
Lorca 452/478 (-57)
Lorquí 18/252 (-5)
Mazarrón 53/164(-6)
Molina de Segura 184/255 (+30)
Moratalla 1/12 (-2)
Mula 37/219 (+8)
Murcia 887/195 (+8)
Ojós 1/200 (-1)
Pliego 3/78 (+1)
Puerto Lumbreras 24/155 (-5)
Ricote 2/158 (0)
San Javier 27/83 (0)
San Pedro del Pinatar 17/66 (-1)
Santomera 43/265 (+6)
Torre Pacheco 63/176 (-2)
Las Torres de Cotillas 51/237 (+7)
Totana 265/1046 (+70)
Ulea 1/114 (+1)
La Unión 31/153 (+9)
Villanueva del Río Segura 5/171 (0)
Yecla 74/214 (-26)
Those from other regions diagnosed in Murcia 58

Hospitalisations:

The good news is that hospitalisations have been fairly stable this week and we actually have less patients in hospital now than at the same point last week; good news.

Two more people have been hospitalized in the last 24 hours, making a total of 325. One additional patient has entered intensive care, making a total of 58. The remainder of those affected, 7,802, are in home isolation with mild symptoms.

Fatalities
Two deaths were reported on Friday; two 85-year-old men from Archena and Molina de Segura. These bring the fatalities total to 200 and the total fatalities this month to 40 and is the seventeenth consecutive day on which fatalities have been reported. There were only 2 deaths in June, 1 in July, and 8 in August, so the figures this month are disappointing, and we are being warned to expect more fatalities as we move into flu season.

This week an interesting report was published in the UK, which shows that those contracting both flu and covid are more than twice as likely to die than patients with just covid. This is being called a "twindemic".

British government scientists conducted the research during the early months of the pandemic: 43% of patients who were hospitalized with both infections died, compared with 26.9% of people who were hospitalized for coronavirus infection alone."If you get both, you are in serious trouble, and the people who are most likely to get both of these infections may be the very people who can least afford to in terms of their own immune system, or their risk for serious outcomes," Yvonne Doyle, Public Health England's medical director, said in an agency news release. She urged people considered high-risk to go for a flu shot if they were eligible.

"The flu vaccine is more important than ever, to help reduce transmission of flu and protect  from the double threat of flu and COVID-19," Doyle said. Flu vaccinations will begin in Spain in early October, so make sure you get yours this year!

More than 70 percent of people with covid in the Murcia Region are under the age of 50.

73 percent of people affected by covid in the Region of Murcia are under 50 years old, the average age of confirmed cases being 37 years old. However, those dying are older, as the graph above shows.

Recoveries.

The total number of recoveries in the Murcia Region is now 8,966 from the 17,293 PCR tests taken to date.

Transport restrictions prolonged for a further month in the Murcia region; same rules continue for travelling in vehicles as before. Click to read

Throughout the week there has been an endless flow of news items relating to covid, most of which we have simply reported on round-ups as they're a repeat of ongoing stories; police imposing fines for not wearing masks which is an ongoing problem, young people continuing to ignore restrictions, classes being quarantined in schools, more testers being allocated, new covid points opening, buildings closing due to covid and re-opening, really not worth spending the time on.

Apart from that, "other news" has been thin on the ground absolutely everywhere, with all resources focused on covid.

The other big story of the week has been the migrant situation and I know some readers are saying oh no, not again, more migrants..... but this week has been rather intense regarding this topic:

This week has seen an intensification in the numbers of irregular migrants arriving along the Spanish coastline, overwhelming marine rescue services, the coastguard and the Cruz Roja which has been offering humanitarian aid to those crossing in small boats (pateras) to Spain.

It’s an emotive subject, which has sparked a great deal of debate in Spain recently, the recent rise in numbers causing resentment within the various police services, which are already stretched to breaking point trying to handle the huge additional workload created by the covid crisis, upsetting the local and regional governments who must try to accommodate and cater for hundreds of illegal migrants in covid quarantine without having suitable facilities in which to house them, causing significant problems for the health services which have had to care for covid positive migrants, the majority of whom speak no Spanish, within the hospital system, which has included contracting private security companies due to the number of break-outs from hospitals (in Cartagena for example, one covid-positive migrant tied his sheets together and climbed out of a third floor hospital window in the middle of the night) to say nothing of the resentment the situation has evoked in the local populations of the areas where the boats have been landing.

Knowing that a percentage of the migrants are covid positive has caused protests and anger, a situation here in Murcia which even reached the national press on the day a group of Los Alcázares residents were videod hurling abuse at a group of migrants who had been temporarily housed in a private property run by the Cruz Roja whilst attempts were made to house them so that quarantine could be observed.

The number of boats arriving has continued to increase: during a 48 hour period earlier this week nearly 600 migrants in dozens of boats landed in the Murcia Region, Alicante province, along the Andalusia coast and on the shores of the Canary and Balearic Islands; the straw that finally seems to have broken the back of the camel representing the Policia Nacional, the national police body which has responsibility for immigration.

There are many sides to this complex problem, the first being that those making the crossing to Spain are virtually all economic migrants, NOT refugees, and in the last few weeks the majority have been Algerians.

Neither Algeria or Morocco are EU members and there are no automatic residency agreements for nationals of either country to live in Spain other than through acquiring a visa, tied to an employment contract, or by having sufficient funds to support themselves, the same as for any third party national. Most of those entering Spain have neither, so are illegal migrants, irregularly entering the country by boat.

The crossings from Algeria are now being operated by criminal gangs, hence the change in the pattern of the way the boats arrive, so rather than a boat be purchased by 3-4 people who cross when the weather forecast seems favourable, the runs over to the Spanish coast are now being organised by commercially-driven gangs, charging significant sums of money to make the run in boats carrying 12-18 people with powerful outboard motors, a large number of boats departing at the same time to spread coastguard resources as thinly as possible.

Normally, attempts are made to repatriate any of these migrants detained and they are temporarily housed in Foreigners Internment Centers (CIE) which were temporarily closed during the Covid lockdown as the borders of both countries were closed, so it was impossible to repatriate anyone entering Spain illegally in this fashion.The centres were all emptied by May 6th and since then, migrants have been released once they have been tested and found to be covid negative as Spain has no legal jurisdiction to hold them past a 72 hour period without a judicial expulsion order being issued.

This, in turn, has fuelled the number of arrivals and the National Police has now ordered that as of Wednesday, September 23rd, the Foreigners Internment Centers (CIE) throughout Spain will re-open in order to house the migrants until they can be repatriated.

In an official letter dated September 23rd, the General Secretariat of the General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders informed the Territorial Operational Coordination Units of this decision, which affects the CIEs of the mainland peninsula and the Canary Islands (this includes the Santomera CIE in the Region of Murcia).

The document states that “operational activity” is “restarted” in the CIEs of the peninsula with the internment of Algerian and Moroccan citizens arriving by boat and in the CIEs of the Canary Islands for sub-Saharan immigrants arriving from Mauritania.

The letter also orders that the Central Repatriation Unit carry out the "appropriate procedures with the consulates of the countries of origin to be able to reinitiate the expulsions processes”.

CIEs are non-penitentiary police facilities and are designed to contain irregular migrants in order to execute expulsion from Spain. The law allows migrants to be kept within the CIE for a maximum of 60 days and, if they have not been returned to their countries of origin within this period, they must be released. In order to facilitate a repatriation, they must be identified and their country of origin proven; this process can be difficult and as a result only around a third of migrants are actually repatriated.

Charities working on behalf of migrants are very angry about this decision and have complained bitterly that the centres are not designed to handle the covid situation and that by putting the migrants arriving in pateras into the centres, the risk of more people actually contracting covid is higher.

On Saturday morning the regional government sent a letter to the Inerior Ministry requesting the urgent transfer of the migrants from the Hotel El Cenajo in Moratalla where they are currently being quarantined, due to the high cost of maintaining them at the expense of the regional governement.


EU unveils new migration plan which removes the unpopular refugee quotas system
Migration has been a long-running divisive issue for the EU and this week Brussels unveiled plans to overhaul an unpopular EU migration policy which has caused deep divisions amongst EU members.
The majority of migrants arriving in Spain are, as stated above, are economic migrants, NOT refugees, so the bulk of the new proposals change little for Spain as the plan seeks to return more failed asylum-seekers to their home countries and meet the demands of some northern and central European nations that refuse to accept relocated migrants.
The new proposals seek renewed initiatives to repatriate more failed asylum-seekers, a process which also achived a 31.5 per cent return rate success last year (similar to the level achieved by Spain regarding economic migrants). Non-EU countries which fail to co-operate risk losing European visa rights and those which are helpful are promised benefits such as investment. Nations opposing mandatory relocations of asylum-seekers from the Mediterranean nations where most arrive can provide alternative help instead.
Spain has found a collaborative approach towards both Morocco and Algeria the most successful route to reducing the numbers of migrations; investing into schemes which help to prevent the migration occurring in the first place and help to create jobs in both countries has proven a practical avenue through which to help improve the situation in the past.
“It will be really key to see how member states deal with these people, what rights they will have — and who will monitor their situation,” said Hanne Beirens, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe think-tank speaking about the new plan on Wednesday.
European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen called it a "European solution... to restore citizens' confidence".

Even before the planned pact was laid out Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said it would not work. Hungary's nationalist government, which has consistently refused to house refugees, said the EU's external borders should "remain perfectly sealed along all sections".

Other news stories this week in Murcia:

La Manga loggerhead turtle nest cleared following hatching of three final turtles: Click to read. It's been a successful turtle season, and we now have 50 baby turtles being fed with fish porridge here in the Region! Excellent news! This week the La Manga nest was cleared out and the remaining infertile eggs removed. It won´t be long now until the 21 turtles which hatched here last year return from training camp and are ready to be released into the sea.

Investigation into Mazarrón kennels reveals shocking neglect. Click here. The police use these reports to try and get across their message that crimes like this against animals must be reported, so that the perpetrators can be punished and educated and the treatment of animals improve. It's beyond belief that humans are so intelligent, yet have such a capacity for cruelty.

The same goes for the situation in Ricote this week in which a dog was caught in an illegal hunting trap. Click to read

Águilas island contains Mediaeval Islamic remains as well as Roman buildings: Águilas is looking forwards, and is improving its tourist attractions by excavating remains on the Isla del Fraile. Click to read

18km long continuous cycle lane for La Manga del Mar Menor.1.2 million euros, with 80% of the money coming from the EU regional development fund, the FEDER fund, and 20% from the Regional Government is being spent linking up sections all along La Manga del Mar Menor to make a new cycle lane running 18 kilometres. Click to read

Proposal for the Mar Menor to become legal entity is admitted for processing. The Congress of Deputies has now admitted the bill to make the Mar Menor and its basin a legal entity: This article discusses a proposal to make the Mar Menor a legal entity in its own right, a proposal which has  this week passed its first hurdle and must now find the popular support to back the proposed legislation. As normal, with all of these Mar Menor-related administrative documents, it's complicated, so is best read only by those who are following the ongoing problems in the lagoon.

Apologies for the "covid slant" on everything at the moment; the Spanish media really is absolutely plastered with anything and everything covid and as it's naturally affecting everything else, there really is nowhere to hide at the moment other than in a cool beer alongside the beach! Fortunately the sun is still shining and although the arrival of polar air has pushed down the overnight temperatures this week, we're still enjoying temperatures in the mid 20's, so all we can do is take advantage of the empty beaches for a good walk and a spot of socially distanced tapas afterward to keep ourselves as far away from covid as possible!

Stay safe and have a good week, and thank you for your support!