Spain to tighten curfews, limit travel for Easter

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) – Spain is set to limit national travel and tighten curfews across the country during Easter week, the country’s Health Ministry said on Thursday.

Easter week is an important national holiday in Spain not only to religious believers, but to the country’s tourism industry.

But, Spain’s Health Ministry announced that a curfew will be imposed from 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. (2100-1700GMT) and all regional borders will remain closed in the hopes of preventing a fourth wave of contagion.

Over Christmas and New Year, Spain was one of the few European nations to relax restrictions to facilitate celebrations.

As a consequence, the country suffered from a devastating third wave in which around 20,000 people lost their lives to COVID-19 and hospitals were pushed to their limit.

Spain has seen contagion drop drastically – the Health Ministry reported just over 6,000 new cases on Thursday – but deaths still remain high as another 254 lives were lost to the disease, bringing the country’s total death toll to 70,501.

Meanwhile, the country is promoting a coronavirus passport at the European level, with an aim to save this summer’s tourism season.

Spain’s tourism minister announced that the country will launch its own pilot project to test out the so-called health passport.

So far, Spain has administered just over 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses of the 5.5 million it has received.

Officials hope the vaccination campaign will accelerate rapidly once more vaccines are approved in order to boost safety and facilitate travel during the summer.