Breaking News – Sanchez creates COVID-19 group to tackle Madrid

Here in the capital of Spain, more than 850,000 Madrilenians, representing 13 per cent of the population, have had restricted mobility since Monday, September 21, to try to stop the advance of the coronavirus.

Monday, September, 21, President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and his colleague President of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, appeared together at Puerta del Sol headquarters, after the meeting they have held to discuss the complicated situation that the community is experiencing due to the coronavirus pandemic.

We are here to help, not to hinder” said President Sánchez, who has advocated for unity to fight the virus. “The will of the Government of Spain is to support and collaborate,” he insisted.

Both leaders have reached various agreements. The main one being the creation of a “space for cooperation” between the Government of Spain and that of the Community of Madrid “to monitor and respond to the evolution of the pandemic.”

This”Covid-19 Group”, will be made up of the Ministers of Health and Territorial Policy and Public Function, the vice president and spokesperson of the Community of Madrid and the Madrid Minister of Health.

The “Covid-19 Group”, will meet weekly, with the aim of coordinating and planning responses against the pandemic. Their proposals will be recommendations for the actions that the Government of the Autonomous Community of Madrid will carry out.

The measure affects 37 areas, with more than 1,000 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. In these areas, the entry and exit of people are restricted except to go to health centres, to comply with work, professional, business or legal obligations, to attend educational centres, to return to your own home, to care for family and dependants or to use financial services such as banks.

The President of the Government has assured that the “Covid-19 Group”, will have ministers and advisers and will begin to meet this afternoon, and will do so on a weekly basis to reverse the situation. The plan in Madrid would go through “strengthening primary care, improving health care and tracking” according to the priorities set by the President of the Government. And Sánchez offers health, advisory and police resources to the Madrid region.

The Government recommends not travelling to Madrid due to the rise of positives from COVID-19, as announced this morning by President Quim Torra, President of the Government of Catalonia, who is pushing for temperature controls in train stations and the airport for travellers from Madrid.

The regional president confirms that Madrid will increase the number of trackers, but explains that for them to be effective there would have to be “millions” of them and she asks Madrilenians to learn to live with the virus by following quarantines rules and taking responsibility.

In this second wave, the President of the Government explains that 6 out of 10 cases are being detected, while in the first two out of every ten were confirmed. He considers that all capacities must be deployed with humility and that the solution will not arrive until there is a vaccine.

Ayuso assures that the plan aims to avoid the unwanted scenario of the confinement of the entire region. They are convinced that with resident responsibility and government support the plan will be successful in reducing the infection and slowing the spread.

The President of the Government emphasizes that the councils will also be “involved in this phase of the pandemic” and calls not to turn it into “a partisan fight” because it is “an epidemiological fight.” “We have a common enemy. We have to change the political climate,” he stresses.