Comment: A week of good news (finally)

As one commentator said, it was a week of good news

Will this week go down in local history as the period in which the battle against Coronavirus was finally won? | - EFE

Jason MoorePalma14/02/2022 09:51

Will this week go down in local history as the period in which the battle against Coronavirus was finally won? The Balearic government scrapped the face mask outdoors and then the Covid passport all in the space of five days. The only big restriction which still remains is the requirement to wear the face mask inside bars, shops and offices.

But, that is it. Overall, it has been quite an upbeat week with reports that the holiday season will start earlier than expected and also the fact that the Spanish government performed a U-turn over the need for British teenagers to be double vaccinated to enter Spain.

The Melia Hotel Group announced that they would be recruiting 1,200 staff and the Spanish government said that they would be raising the minimum wage. As one commentator said, it was a week of good news. But there are obviously some pitfalls. The number of Covid cases in the Balearics remains high, the situation is still not fully under control with the number of daily cases on the islands still in the upper hundreds.

The Balearic government has said that if there is a big increase in cases they will have little option but to introduce new restrictions. They had put great faith in the vaccine passport which was scrapped almost as quickly as it was introduced.

As I said in this newspaper yesterday I do feel that there is a bit of a knee jerk reaction about some of the decisions to scrap restrictions by the Balearic government. As the the protest march through the streets of Palma yesterday showed there is opposition to the vaccine programme and the restrictions.