Spain’s government hints that Costa del Sol’s Malaga can move to Phase 1 of de-escalation on May 18

Today, Spain’s government has acknowledged Malaga’s disappointment at being denied the go ahead to move to Phase 1 of de-escalation, on Monday May 11.

YESTERDAY, the Ministry of Health only gave six out of eight Andalucian provinces the go ahead to move to Phase 1, except for Malaga and Granada, because they did not meet the set health criteria, as reported.

However, the Ministry of Health’s Director of Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, has hinted today that Malaga – along with Granada – is likely to get the go-ahead to move to the next phase of de-escalation on Monday May 18, so long as it continues to improve its Covid-19 statistics.

Simón also responded to Malaga’s confusion over why other regions were allowed to move to Phase 1 by health district and Malaga wasn’t, as reported. Andalucia’s government requested that Malaga be allowed to move to Phase 1 by readiness of health district, as opposed to province, which would have allowed many municipalities to progress to the next stage and uplift more restrictions.

He responded by saying that “the other regions just requested one method for the whole community – either by health district or by province – and not a mixture of the two as Andalucia requested.”

Simón acknowledged that overall “Andalucia has done a great job during pandemic” and to a “high level.” But he insisted that “prudence is vital” as there is a “very high risk that we may have to take a step back. So we have to put in place all the measures to avoid this, particularly as it’s quite difficult to control mobility in Malaga,” he pointed out. “There were elements of controlling mobility that Malaga could not meet.”

However, Simón believes that the whole of Malaga will be ready for the next phase of deescalation in about a week’s time. He also cautioned against converting the deescalation process into “a race” because “that will only take us to unwanted territory – which is another outbreak,” he warned.