The President of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol has asked the Central Government for "a specificity" in order to impose a curfew when the State of Alarm ends on May 9.
"I hope we don't have to use the curfew or any other restrictions," she said. "We want the health situation to get better and to have fewer restrictions in the Autonomous Community, but that depends on the evolution of the health pandemic and if we need to adopt restrictions we need to have the legal instruments available," she explained.
During a visit to Son Llàtzer Hospital, President Armengol said possible legal support for the 22:00-06:00 curfew in the Balearics is a debate for the Inter-territorial Council of Health and defended the restrictions imposed in the Balearic Islands.
"The Easter restrictions have had an impact on the Balearic cumulative incidence rate, which is one of the lowest in Spain and it’s thanks to these measures,” she said. “In the 13 months of the pandemic, there were times when the State of Alarm was in force and times when it was not and the Balearic Islands had a legal framework to make the decisions it deems appropriate.
President Armengol stressed that the court has always ratified the restrictive measures adopted by the Government, but says she worries about the situation after the State of Alarm and said it’s crucial to be able to use the curfew if necessary, but hopes not to have to use it.
"When we’ve vaccinated the most vulnerable people we will be in a different situation and the health system won’t be saturated. We all want to be able to modulate the restrictions” she said. "We will study the situation when the State of Alarm ends and what legal possibilities the Autonomous Community has, then take measures to protect the population. It will be up to the court to decide whether or not to ratify our decisions and I trust that it will do so.”
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Clearly, if we allow tourism back here before we've all been vaccinated, it's inevitable that the cases will rise yet again, and restrictions and curfews will need to be re-imposed. The key to the problem is to concentrate on vaccinating all residents as soon as possible. There's too much emphasis on the economy here, with airlines, hoteliers and (mostly immigrant) workers protesting, but getting it wrong will be far more costly in the longer term....