Spain has embarked on the “desescalada”, the deconfinement plan which will be divided into 4 phases. As of Monday 25th May, certain regions which were still in phase 0 will go into phase 1 of the deconfinement plan, authorizing certain activities and businesses to resume. The others will go into phase 2 and will have even more freedom. As of Monday there will be no more Spanish territory in phase 0 of the “desescalada”. Lisbob, the expatriate assistant, tells you everything that is changing this Monday, May 25th in Spain.
Check out the zones that go into phase 1 and 2 in Spain from this Monday, May 25th
The Spanish government has accepted that the Community of Madrid, Barcelona and its metropolitan area, as well as the entire territory of Castilla y León, will move forward with the de-escalation plan towards phase 1. 53% of the Spanish population (25 million inhabitants) ) will be subject to the restrictions included in this phase from Monday 25 May. The other 22 million inhabitants will go to phase 2, or 47% of the population, residing in the six provinces of Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, the islands remaining in the Canaries and the Balearics, Cantabria, two provinces of Castilla-La Mancha, three zones in Catalonia, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarre, Basque Country, La Rioja and Ceuta and Melilla. This implies that all of Spain will be in phase 1 at least from next week.
The Spanish Minister of Health announced on Friday the territories that were advancing in the deconfinement plan. The minister assured that the government had opted for "the path of prudence and security" and promised to publish on Monday all the technical reports of phase changes, when he had announced the reverse in order to do not offend the different autonomous communities. He defended "that an effort of transparency has always been in the spirit of the ministry", but regions like Andalusia criticize him for his opacity.
The Andalusian Council demanded that the Ministry of Health "rectify the grievance" which involves leaving the provinces of Granada and Malaga in phase 1 when these regions have "better data" on the incidence of coronavirus than the other territories from the country. Andalusian President Juan Manuel Moreno accused the executive of acting "with little transparency and against technical criteria" and described the decision as "incomprehensible".
With the exception of the Valencian community, which decided to continue phase 1, all the communities asked to move forward. From this Monday, the nine provinces of Castilla y León, the sanitary zones of the city of Barcelona, Metropolitana Sud and Metropolitana Nord and Madrid, will move on to phase 1. Meetings of up to 10 people will be allowed in the houses, provided that hygiene measures and safety distances are observed. In addition, they will be allowed to travel within the province and to go to a second home as long as it is within the limits of the region.
Six provinces of Andalusia (Almería, Cordoba, Cadiz, Huelva, Jaén and Seville) pass to phase 2, two of Castilla-La Mancha (Cuenca and Guadalajara), what remained of the Canary Islands (Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and La Palma) and the Balearic Islands (Ibiza, Menorca and Majorca), as well as all of the territories of Aragon, Asturias, Cantabria, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarre, Basque Country, La Rioja and Ceuta and Melilla. In Catalonia, the health zones of Campo de Tarragona, Alto Pirineo and Arán and Las Tierras del Ebro pass.
In each of these areas, it is possible to visit relatives in nursing homes, meet with 15 friends at the same time, go to school voluntarily, go shopping in a mall, go hunting and fish, go back to driving school, go to the cinema or even swim in the pool.
