If there are no new setbacks, in a few weeks Catalonia's fifth wave of Covid-19 will have come to an end, as the indicators published every day by the Catalan health ministry point in this direction. As on the other four previous occasions, the recommendation must be the same: maximum precaution and no lowering of our guard, since, despite the obvious fall in indicators, 26 further deaths were reported in Catalonia on Tuesday. And that is many.
If at the end of the school year, people started dreaming of a practically normal summer, then the midsummer festivals, end-of-term parties and an explosion of night-time socialising among the younger age groups - those who made the greatest effort in the tougher phases of the pandemic - immediately sent those ideas into the waste-paper basket. There were certainly mistakes made, as the Catalan minister of health, Josep Maria Argimon, has acknowledged. The result is a summer that has not reached expectations, conceived very much in terms of domestic tourism; we'll have to wait until September to find out the real price that had been paid for the absence of so much foreign tourism.
Unlike last year, when the restrictions were more severe across the Spanish state and between autonomous communities, this summer a new and curious situation has arisen: the mobility of tens of thousands of young people between regions in search of the most lax restrictions possible: Madrid has once again stood out, with its nightlife open until three in the morning. Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha as well. And it's not that their statistics are better, since the cumulative incidence (AI) in Madrid over the last 14 days is 676.2 and in Catalonia it is 613.9 and, on the other hand, the measures are much more drastic here than there.
The latest data on the number of people aged 16 or over who are fully vaccinated is good news, but, as recent studies show, it is necessary to raise this percentage to achieve group or herd immunity. The fact that vaccination has now been made available without an appointment for anyone aged 12 or more in a range of centres around Catalonia seeks to facilitate a safer return to schools and achieve the greatest coverage as soon as possible.
The closer the vaccination level gets to 80% of the overall population, the more the chances of a sixth wave in autumn will recede. But there is still time before then.