Viewpoint: When the Covid map turns red

Where did it go wrong?

Balearic measures were all about “saving the season”. | M.A. CAÑELLAS

Andrew EdePalma15/07/2021 10:34

With tourism industry concerns turned, once again, to the UK’s traffic lights, the weekly European map of incidence and test rates from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was being highlighted by the Spanish travel media, and it painted a grim picture.

Most of Europe was green, meaning for example that the 14-day incidence was less than 50 and the test rate was less than four per cent. Meanwhile, almost all of Spain, including the Balearics, was a red colour. Only Cyprus had a darker red. Nowhere else, except Portugal, was a red.

When one considers that incidence rates in Spain were - for the most part - either between 75 and 200 or over 200, while France was 63, Germany was 11 and Poland was as low as 3.13, the question has to be asked - where did it go wrong?

A simple conclusion is that tourism had created this situation. It may indeed have been a factor, but then why is Italy green? The answer lies primarily with the consequences (inevitable as they were) of lifting the curfew, easing mobility and abandoning limits on social gatherings. But has there not been similar easing elsewhere?

Balearic measures were all about “saving the season”. It’s not been lost but it keeps coming under threat.

The regional government insists that the incidence rate is not what matters, but if it doesn’t matter, then why do the ECDC and the Robert Koch Institute in Germany (and the UK) give it such prominence?