Charlie Smith
CHILDREN up to 14 years old will be allowed outside in less than a week, the Government has announced.
The age limit had been set at 12 years old, but has now been confirmed as 14 by finance minister and spokesperson, Maria Jesus Montero.
In the first big relaxation of Spain’s COVID-19 lockdown measures, kids will be allowed to take to the streets from April 27 with an accompanying adult.
Adults and children will still be limited to activities considered essential, including food shopping, visiting the pharmacy or a doctor and buying the newspaper.
The move is intended to allow families to run essential errands and not designed to let children to ‘go for a walk’.
With this loosening of restrictions, Moreno urged the public to act with ‘common sense’.
An ‘explanatory guide’ will be published to accompany the announcement, according to El Mundo.
The decision was taken by the Council of Ministers, which acted on the recommendations of the Scientific Committee.
The announcement comes after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hinted at the weekend that he may increase the age limit for children allowed outside.
Spain’s children will have been on lockdown for six weeks by the time they are allowed to leave on Monday April 27.
The country’s lockdown was announced on March 14, but in recent weeks there has been growing pressure on Sanchez’s PSOE administration to relax restrictions for kids – which are the most draconian in Europe.
High profile politicians have called on Sanchez to let minors out over fears that their physical and mental health could suffer from continued confinement.
Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, was among those asking for changes and demanded the PM ‘free our children’.
She said: “We live in an excessively ‘adultocentric; society that condemns us to avoidable sufferings.
“Children are not an accident, nor a nuisance to manage.
“They are people, with children’s rights enshrined in international treaties but are systematically violated.”
What a good Idea….not! Allowing children to go out accompanied by an adult to oxygenate was the plan. Now they are going to be allowed in shops and places where the vulnerable HAVE to visit. This is putting more pressure on the shop assistants that are already doing a worthwhile but possibly dangerous job. We all know that most parents take their child shopping in a car! So where is the oxygenating?
What a load of rubbish the Goverment has ordained, agree with klooky and would add have you ever seen a chid hold the hand of the Mother and not touch the godos in a Supermarket!! Nuf said.
Should read Goods and Child, the confinment is getting to us all.