The decision by the Catalan government to impose a curfew on 158 municipalities - which are home to more than 80% of the population of Catalonia - is a blow to the tourism sector, the economy and the image of the country. Those who govern in this red zone that television stations around the world have been showing for several weeks - deterring foreign visitors either with subtle hints from governments or outright instructions to their citizens - will have to cross their fingers that we do not, in one fell swoop, lose not just the month of July, but also those of August and September.
The government has adopted the unpopular measure of curfew between 1am and 6am in the middle of summer, after on Tuesday it had already agreed to close all nocturnal activities at 12:30am, which mainly affects restaurants, nightlife and the cultural sector, as well as limiting the size of gatherings in restaurants or homes to ten persons. It is surprising that, just at the moment when the curve has apparently begun to recede and the maximum peak has already been left behind, the toughest measure of recent months has been imposed. The government of the Generalitat has its experts, and they are very good, but having just listened to Àlex Arenas and Oriol Mitjà they seemed to be moderately optimistic about the data for the next few days, before the curfew was announced.
Perhaps the fact that this is imposed for a minimum of seven days already gives the idea that no one wants to rush in, when the initial duration quoted on other occasions has been a minimum of two weeks. We will see, because although numbers of infections are very high, figures for hospital admissions and ICUs are still in non-alarming parameters. Another matter, though, is the fear that there may be regarding the evolution of the Delta variant and the incidence of this fifth wave.
From day one I have argued that the positions of doctors and experts, who know the most about the evolution of the pandemic, need to be listened to very carefully. But at the same time, I have pointed out that the government has to govern and that it was a mistake to leave this responsibility exclusively in the hands of the medical community, which has a vision of Covid-19 which is certainly very insightful and accurate, but in decisions there are always other imponderables that need to be assessed even if they are sometimes not taken into account.
It is easy to talk with the different economic sectors of the large Catalan tourism area and find that in the last few hours they have put themselves on a war footing, as they consider that the government has acted hastily, and has planted an authentic atomic bomb in its economy and tossed the whole season straight into the garbage. It is their particular perspective, of course, but the fact that in some areas, governments take certain actions, and in others, they do it differently, makes their irritation more understandable.
And, in the middle of all this, the Spanish Constitutional Court has overturned by six votes to five the first state of alarm decreed by Pedro Sánchez, which was in force between March 14th and May 4th, 2020. That the resolution was adopted after an appeal by Vox is no anecdote. And to have been the first Constitutional Court in an EU state to overturn government measures against the coronavirus is truly a declaration of intentions in a debate as complex as the dilemma between preserving public health and individual liberty.