With just one week to go before the great Christmas exodus, which will involve millions of people travelling across the geography of Spain, an impression is beginning to emerge among authorities, scientists, epidemiologists and experts that we are walking on the edge of the abyss. In just a few days, the atmosphere at large and public statements have converged on a single point: that there are risks in celebrating Christmas with the supposedly lax measures first agreed between the ministry and the autonomous communities and later detailed by each community. Catalan public health secretary, Josep Maria Argimon, spoke bluntly on Wednesday, assuring that the third wave of the coronavirus is coming and that the data which we have got used to seeing for a few months - the Rt contagion rate, the outbreak risk, the number of cases, the deaths from coronavirus, the intensive care occupancy and the number of hospital admissions were increasingly dangerous and action had to be taken accordingly.
The president of the Barcelona Medical Association, Jaume Padrós, also stated that we are at one of the most delicate moments of the pandemic and that social interaction needs to be drastically and immediately reduced. Xavier Graset's Més 324 television programme interviewed the physicist and researcher Àlex Arenas, who has already predicted that full home lockdown will be inevitable at the end of the year or the beginning of next year. These are three weighty opinions and all three are looking in the same direction. The Catalan education ministry has already announced that the return to schools will now be on Monday 11th January and not Friday 8th as planned and although it is not under consideration there are wide demands that school holidays begin on 18th December, thus also removing another school day, Monday 21st. All are moves aimed at the same goal: trying to control the spread of the virus which, it seems, has again got away on us, as social interaction has been much higher, and consequently more lethal, than expected.
To close the circle, Europe, or an important part of Europe, the place we usually look at with a certain envy, is proceeding to instigate more significant closures whether it be of schools, shops, restaurants or even lockdowns. Faced with this scenario, ordinary people are puzzled, not knowing what to do and their fear is that even if they do what they're told, the end result won't be satisfactory. It would be very unfortunate to have to conclude that social interaction can only be reduced via a full home confinement. It is all a huge tangle which is impossible, in the end, to make any sense of. And the days go by, in a world where certainties are gone and something as simple as organizing Christmas has become a real problem for many families. Because, make no mistake, the gatherings at home that have taken in other years will not be repeated during these holidays, but on the other hand, celebrations outside the home will achieve unprecedented successes.
The next three or four days will be definitive in learning whether the provisional plans are maintained or if steps backward will be taken. I assure you that on very few occasions have I seen such an uncertain situation. Something that is understandable, since it is not every day that one comes face to face with a pandemic like the current one, but which collides head-on with our need for clarity, something which we should expect from the authorities. And even more so at a time when, more than Christmas, what is at stake are the lives of so many people.