WHILE the rest of the world was nervously looking up at the sky waiting for an out-of-control Chinese rocket to land on them (it fell in the Indian Ocean and civilisation is still standing and not pancake-shaped), Spain was counting down the seconds to the end of its long 'State of Alarm', and the new birth of normal life.
Bar terraces are now open all over Spain, with opening hour limits ranging from 22.00 to 01.00 (photo: Guía Repsol/The Repsol Guide)
The country has not been in full lockdown in nearly a year, but restrictions in place have meant, according to contagion rates and where you live, everything from bars and restaurants shutting completely, a ban on travelling outside your town or anyone else coming in, no travel outside of one's region, shops closing early (or hypermarkets with everything bar the food aisles roped off and out of bounds from approximately 18.00), shops being shut all weekend (in Catalunya), nobody allowed to meet anyone outside their household – even if they live alone, unless they were able to form a 'bubble' and assuming everyone they knew hadn't already formed one with someone else - no fiestas, no concerts, no fun.
Of course, catching Covid-19 or watching your family or friends suffer from it – or worse – is no fun either, and whilst many measures were criticised as pointless, over the top, or both, others were accepted with a grim resignation on the basis that, of two prices to pay, the limitations came at a lesser cost.
But the end of the 'State of Alarm' does not mean everything going back to how it was in February 2020 – full pubs, packed shopping streets, boozy festivals, being able to put the rubbish out without having to remember your mask first – although it does mean that the 'legal mechanism' preventing certain fundamental freedoms has now been 'switched off', so they cannot be prevented.
As mentioned earlier this week, regional governments are required to decide what restrictions, if any, they will put in place, and these have to be signed off by regional High Courts of Justice; Valencia, Catalunya and the Balearic Islands have had theirs approved, whilst the Basque Country's were turned down.
In all regions, no travel bans outside or into them are in place any longer, but masks are still compulsory anywhere outside private homes, even in the open air.
Clearly, this means the situation is different depending upon where you live, so we've summarised each one below – although a number of factors remain open to clarification for the moment.
Regions are listed in alphabetical order, so scroll down to find yours if you want a quick reference, or read through if you're interested in comparing your own part of the country with the rest.
Andalucía
Encompassing the provinces of Huelva, Cádiz, Málaga, Granada, Almería, Córdoba, Sevilla and Jaén, the southern strip of the mainland will be working on a phased return to 'normality' in three stages, with the aim of being virtually restriction-free by June 21, as long as the vaccine roll-out has reached around 70% of the region's population.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com