Doctor Antoni Trilla, head of epidemiology at Barcelona's Hospital Clínic, one of the experts that Pedro Sánchez appointed to the Scientific Committee on Covid-19, put his finger on it exactly, and he did so with the prudence that usually characterizes him: "The effects of the partial return to work on Tuesday will be seen in seven to ten days." As is well known, Sánchez put an end to the Spanish state's total lockdown while disregarding the views of this scientific committee and, consequently, the decision of the two parties that make up the Spanish government, the PSOE and Podemos, gives priority to political considerations. The cards have now been played and within two weeks we will know if the decision was reckless or not. The latest to speak up on the matter has been the medical association Metges de Catalunya, which has also warned of a possible resurgence of the coronavirus that would be "unmanageable" for the health system.
With the end of the total lockdown, the first distribution of face masks by the Red Cross and Catalan Civil Protection will take place, at more than a hundred points of access to public transport in Catalan cities with populations over 30,000, aimed at the people who have to go to work. Given that this is a health emergency and relates to the propagation of a virus as virulent as this one, it is obvious that there are very few distribution points and an insufficient number of masks. The single command imposed by Pedro Sánchez under the state of alarm should not be a permanent punishment for the citizenry, nor should it act as a centrifuge for problems, many of them occurring as a result of incompetence.
We have to trust, therefore, in the responsibility of the citizens and their maturity, after the Catalan government made numerous appeals to the Spanish government to revoke its decision but without success. It can be seen that Pedro Sánchez's executive pays little attention to the requests made to it and in this crisis the two leaderships - of Spain and Catalonia - have moved in opposite directions. The former, furthermore, with the support of employers' associations and major unions UGT and CCOO, and the latter by standing its ground alone with backing from doctors and scientists.
These will be two key weeks for the evaluation of Spain and Italy, two of the countries that have reported most casualties in this crisis and are beginning to relax with the measures they have taken with regard to total lockdown. Italy still has 566 deaths a day, and at time of writing has undergone an upward shift from its figure of 436 on Sunday. Spain's death toll on Sunday was 517. Meanwhile, France, with 574 deaths in the last 24 hours, has announced that it will extend its compulsory lockdown until May 11th. Perhaps, in the future, it may not be enough for people to say that the crisis caught them by surprise in order to come out of this well.