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The agglomerations exceed the ‘covid plan’ of the Generalitat

The Generalitat had a plan. For several weeks it intended to carry out a de-escalation that would guarantee a return to normality after the second wave of coronavirus and force drastic mobility measures. The project contemplated a specific action on Christmas days, as explained last Monday by the Minister of the Interior Miquel SÃ mper, and which consisted of allowing travel until after curfew on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve as well as meetings of about 10 people, not counting children under 14 years of age, with two coexistence bubbles.

The bad epidemiological data from last week, with an increase in the speed of contagion that is now stabilized, forced the Generalitat to prevent the phase change this past Monday, in the middle of the bridge. Also the number of admitted, with almost 1,600 of which about 400 are in intensive care, and the mortality trend has stabilized in recent days but they are still quite high figures.

Despite the mobility restrictions, which have prevented citizens from leaving their municipality, the center of Barcelona has experienced significant crowds with long queues in front of some stores that have posted full-capacity posters. The situation worsened as of Monday with the arrival of people from municipalities near the city who cannot go to most of the shopping centers because they are closed and they moved to the capital. Even the Urban Guard had to carry out controls on Monday and cut streets due to the traffic registered in these areas, in addition to warning about the maintenance of safety distances in some queues.

These agglomerations have worried the Government since they could ruin the specific plan to reduce infections before the Christmas holidays. Even health officials have ruled out advancing a few days to expand the capacity of shops, restaurants and cultural shows as requested by these sectors due to the risk situation. For the moment, the Health Department is waiting to see the evolution of the epidemiological data to continue with the de-escalation, taking into account that it has not been two weeks since the opening of bars and restaurants was allowed again.

A sign of the Government’s concern about these agglomerations, the vice president of the Generalitat, Pere AragonÚs, once again demanded citizen responsibility and added that the virus is transmitted by people, not by economic and social activity. in reference to a possible permit to open shopping centers and avoid the collapse of urban areas full of stores.

The commercial offer of the country is very wide and, therefore, there are possibilities of concentration in any area, stated Aragonés, who appealed to the maximum prudence of the citizens regarding Christmas shopping. ace. In addition, he maintained that the measures and the schedule provided for in the reopening plan are still in force since what happens at Christmas depends on our way of doing now , despite the fact that the administration will take into account criteria sanitary.

Another sign that the Generalitat’s forecasts were overwhelmed by the overcrowding in some areas were the words of the director of the Servei Català de Trà nsit (SCT), Juli Gendrau, who highlighted that on Monday there was a greater influx of vehicles in urban areas and he linked it to the decrease in trips in public transport.  € œWe saw that the most complicated places were in more commercial areas, â € Gendrau explained, although there were no traffic jams in the center of Barcelona on Tuesday, only some court near Plaza Catalunya.

However, unlike last weekend, yesterday there was more presence in commercial areas far from the center, such as Sants, Grà cia or SarriÃ, so there were not so many crowds in front of the stores. The Barcelona Comerç Foundation, which brings together the 24 commercial hubs of the city, pointed out that this bridge has registered significant sales taking into account the difficulties of the sector in the last year marked by the coronavirus.

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