The Times - UK (2020-09-05)

16 2GM Saturday September 5 2020 | the times

NewsNews Coronavirus Wo r l d

Berlusconi:

Now I realise

the gravity of

this tragedy

italy

Silvio Berlusconi, who was infected

with Covid-19 despite isolating in

France, has been admitted to hospital

in Milan as a precaution.

The former prime minister, who is

due to turn 84 this month, is under

the care of his personal doctor,

Alberto Zangrillo, at the San Raffaele

hospital. In an interview with the

newspaper La Stampa, Mr Berlusconi

acknowledged the seriousness of his

symptoms, which included fever and

pain in the muscles and bones. “Now

that the thing affects me personally, I

realise the gravity of this tragedy that

has come upon us,” he said.

china

Beijing will host China’s first large-

scale trade fair since the pandemic

began to boast of its success in

combatting the outbreak and seek

foreign investment. The China

International Fair for Trade in

Services is expected to draw more

than 100,000 people, although

fewer foreign exhibitors are expected

to be there.

australia

Victoria, the second most populous

state, reported 59 deaths, Australia’s

highest single daily toll since the

pandemic began. They took the

state’s Covid-19 tally to 672 and

Australia’s to 737. However, 50 of the

latest fatalities — mostly in the state

capital, Melbourne — occurred

earlier than in the past 24 hours and

were belatedly reported due to new

federal government requirements.

new zealand

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister,

highlighted Melbourne’s second virus

wave when warning that restrictions

would continue until September 14. In

Auckland, a maximum of ten people

can gather, compared with 100

elsewhere. Five new cases were

recorded yesterday, together with

New Zealand’s first coronavirus death

in more than three months, making

23 in total.

france

A dozen schools closed just days into

the new academic year as cases

surged. In others, pupils in classes

with an infection were sent home.

Some parents and teachers’ unions

had raised concerns that the virus

could spread through classrooms.

Jean-Michel Blanquer, the education

minister, said the overwhelming

majority of France’s 12 million pupils

had returned without any problems.

Global cases 26,171,

Global deaths 865,

Reported new cases

World update

Most new cases

33

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

19

124

India

Brazil

US

Argentina

Colombia

Spain

France

Peru

Russia

UK

China

10,

9,

8,

6,

6,

5,

1,

39,

46,

83,

In the working-class neighbourhood of

San Diego, anger is growing among

residents who face the highest rates of

coronavirus infection in Spain.

The barrio, bordered by railway

tracks and Madrid’s circular motorway,

is part of the Puente de Vallecas district,

which over the past two weeks has

recorded 987 cases per 100,000 people,

twice as high as the capital’s average

and almost four times that of the

country.

Outbreaks in Madrid have pushed it

to the fore of a second wave in Spain,

where the pandemic is spreading at its

fastest pace in Europe. Politicians again

stand accused of acting too late. They

puzzle over the causes, but residents in

San Diego have their own explanations.

“This is a poor neighbourhood,” Mar-

garita Martínez, 55, who works as a

carer for elderly people, said. “The gov-

ernment gives money to wealthier

areas but they have abandoned us.”

Julián de Diego, 62, who was born in

San Diego and has been a taxi driver for

39 years, added: “Why has it happened

here? Because we are working people

who go out to clean people’s houses,

stations and offices, and we drive public

transport and work in shops. We are at

risk. And they don’t send resources and

trackers and tracers here.”

Some blame overpopulation. “Lots of

people are living in very small houses

and sharing flats,” said Aroa Garcia, 36,

a mother of four. Others said young

people were not distancing or wearing

Spain’s leaders caught off guard

by worst second wave in Europe

masks. “They meet in large groups,”

Edberto Realba, 26, a food courier from

Venezuela, said. “They party a lot.”

Madrid has recorded 467 cases per

100,000 people over the past two weeks,

with the highest incidences concentrat-

ed in Puente de Vallecas and three other

poor southern districts. The capital

accounts for a third of infections in

Spain, which in turn has had about a

third of Europe’s cases over the past

fortnight, if Russia is excluded. The

number of cases nationwide has

reached 236 per 100,000 people, com-

pared with 27 in Britain, 28 in Italy, 105

in France and 19 in Germany.

Spain’s record is causing alarm across

the Continent. Experts and the public

question how the authorities were

caught off guard and what measures

they will take to curb the escalation.

Yesterday the country registered

8,959 new infections, the highest num-

ber since the resurgence and one that

will fuel fears about the return from

summer holidays to schools and offices.

The Socialist-led coalition govern-

ment of Pedro Sánchez, who this week

ruled out another national lockdown,

has acknowledged that things “are not

going well”. Spain was one of the hard-

est hit countries during the first wave of

the pandemic and has lost about 29,

lives to the virus, although estimates

based on excess deaths put the figure at

about 45,000.

The government points out that the

mortality rate is half what it was at the

height of the crisis and that the major-

ity of positive results are asymptomatic.

However, the surge is being felt on the

front line. “Our hospital has started to

have to reorganise entire floors and

operating rooms and non-emergency

consultations,” said José Curbelo, a

senior doctor at the Princesa hospital in

Madrid, where the average number of

Covid patients has increased from

about ten in June to 80 now.

More worrying, Dr Curbelo

observed, is that the capital’s primary

healthcare centres are “saturated” with

Covid cases, which has compounded

Spain’s much-criticised lack of track

and tracing. “Primary care colleagues

are overwhelmed and they’re actually

trying to do the tracing,” he said, adding

that laboratory bottlenecks meant it

could take a week or longer to do the

test and get the results back.

In San Diego most people inter-

viewed by The Times said that they

were waiting for delayed medical ap-

pointments. Several said they had

friends who could not risk being tested

in case the result was positive; that

would mean isolation and loss of work.

“Many people here can’t afford to

self-isolate,” Mrs Martínez said. “If you

don’t work you won’t eat.”

Health experts including Dr Curbelo

also believe that the country came out

of confinement too quickly. After the

strict lockdown was eased on June 21,

Spain rapidly opened its borders to

foreign tourists and gregarious social

gatherings got under way.

Mr Sánchez said last month that out-

breaks in July among itinerant farm

workers in Aragon and Catalonia were

a turning point. He cited night life and

family reunions as causes of the new

wave. The Madrid region has

announced tighter restrictions on

social gatherings, including limiting the

number of people at ten to match meas-

ures reimposed elsewhere in Spain.

Health experts have welcomed such

measures but analysts have pointed to

deeper problems: Spain’s political frag-

mentation and polarisation and a de-

bate over the powers of its decentral-

ised system of 17 regional governments.

“This crisis has shown the deficien-

cies of the Spanish state, that it’s not a

federal state and it’s not a centralised

state,” said Miguel Otero-Iglesias of the

Elcano Royal Institute, a think tank in

Madrid, who served on a government

committee on the transition out of the

lockdown. “One of the biggest prob-

lems in Spain is that it does not have a

sufficiently institutionalised and assim-

ilated culture of co-operation.”

Ildefonso Hernández-Aguado, a

former director-general of public

health for the Spanish government,

said the regions had underestimated

the second wave. “There has been a

problem with not enough health work-

ers for the contact tracing,” he said. But

he disagreed that decentralisation was

an added issue.

With no national picture, no national

strategy and a paucity and disunity of

data, botched plans by regional govern-

ments have added to the impression of

political improvisation. This week there

was chaos outside a Madrid testing

centre where thousands of teachers had

been sent at the last minute before the

start of the academic year next week.

On the front line that lack of a

national strategy is being felt. Dr Cur-

belo said: “It is not necessarily more

hospitals or more doctors needed. But a

better network to detect and isolate and

monitor cases. Without that it is impos-

sible for the disease to be controlled.”

Politicians in Madrid

are accused of failing

to protect the working

class, Isambard

Wilkinson reports

MADRID

Carabanchel

Villaverde

Usera

San Diego

Airport

Five miles

Plaza Mayor

Covid-19 in Spain

Cases are now higher than first peak (thousands, seven day rolling average) Daily deaths are increasing (seven day rolling average)

Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep June July August Sep

0

8

6

4

2

10

30

20

10

0

40

Highlighted sections show where case number calculation methods changed.

From July, cases were only reported on weekdays.

Source: Johns Hopkins University

Nightlife in

Barcelona:

young

people

have been

blamed for

Catalonian

outbreaks