Joshua Parfitt
POLICE have been given orders to fine anyone travelling to a ‘second home’ after coronavirus patients from Madrid created outbreaks on Spain’s coastal regions.
Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Spain’s Minister of the Interior, told authorities on Friday to ‘double down’ on weak spots in the rules enforcing Spain’s unprecedented ‘state of alarm’. Going home has up until now been a reasonable reason for using public roads.
The fines will range between €600-3,000 while police have orders to arrest any ‘repeat offenders’.
The beefed-up enforcement came in preparation for the weekend, as the government feels enough time has elapsed for Spanish residents to internalise the rules of confinement.
Grande-Marlaska said the following ‘weak spots’ will see a crackdown from Saturday:
- Circulation of non-essential workers who continue to attend to on-site obligations.
- Vehicles in which more than one person travel, despite prohibitions on passengers except for justifiable circumstances.
- Comunal spaces in urbanisations and residential areas that are occupied for leisure or sporting activities.
- The aforementioned trips to second homes, especially on weekends and public holidays.
- Use of rural roads to escape police road blocks.
Reports previously circulated of a man from Madrid, 88, who caught coronavirus in the capital before traveling to his second home in Murcia.
The man went to a centro comercial before entering hospital.
Murcia’s president then put seven municipalities on the coast into lockdown, a day before Pedro Sanchez announced the nationwide state of alarm measures.
