Barcelona’s Shockingly Overcrowded Beaches Forced to Close as Public Fail to Respect Social Distancing

Barcelona Town Hall was forced to close some of its beaches today due to overcrowding and reaching full capacity requirements, on the first day that they were allowed to open since the lockdown began in March.

IN fact, a shocked Associated Press journalist Emilio Morenatti published several tweets revealing an overcrowded beach in Barcelona with hundreds of people failing to respect social distancing measures, without a mask. In one of his Tweets, he stated “the police has just arrived to stop people accessing the beach.”

It’s actually the first weekend that Barcelona’s residents have been allowed to sunbathe since the Catalan capital entered Phase 2 of de-escalation. Nova Icària and Bogatell beaches were closed today as they reached the maximum permitted occupancy by 4.45pm, according to the town hall. However, many onlookers were shocked at the scenes on the city’s beaches today, despite the fact that Barcelona is still only in Phase 2 of de-escalation and there’s still a risk of getting infected with Covid-19.

The maximum capacity for all of the city’s 10 beaches is around 38,000 people, according to Barcelona Town Hall. A newly launched service on its website which allows the public to see how busy each of the 10 beaches are, actually revealed high occupancy rates at six of its beaches today. The town hall, however, has just finished installing 18 video sensors that will hopefully allow the authorities to better control beach capacity this summer.