Andalucía reopens provincial borders as authorities 'optimistic' about Covid figures nationwide
Wednesday, April 28, 2021 @ 1:43 PM
PROVINCIAL border closures in the southern region of Andalucía will be lifted on Thursday this week (April 29) for the first time in three months now that the pandemic is beginning to abate in the area.
Estepona (Málaga province)
Until now, nobody was allowed to travel outside their province, except in extenuating circumstances such as healthcare, when their district hospital was in the next one, travelling to work, and care duties.
This would have proven a headache for anyone living right on the border of their province, since their regularly-used shops and their friends may be on the wrong side, meaning they would have been off limits since January.
Regional president Juanma Moreno says the decision to reopen province borders is linked to the fact that the latest, fourth wave of the Covid-19 spread has been 'much milder', the vaccine roll-out has been progressing well and the region is 'better prepared'.
Head of Spain's disease control centre Fernando Simón – a face rarely out of the news in the past year, but until then relatively unknown to the general public – says he can 'see light at the end of the tunnel' with the pandemic, and that he is 'optimistic' at the trend in figures.
Spain has now started to give priority to the Pfizer vaccine and is beginning to 'relieve' the AstraZeneca inoculation, meaning those due to be called for their jab at the moment are more likely to be given the RNA-messenger version developed in Germany by Turkish researchers rather than the viral vector type created by international scientists at Oxford University for the Swedish pharmaceutical giant.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com