John Culatto
LA Linea has managed to halve its active COVID-19 cases this week after parents decided to stop sending their children to school.
Gibraltar’s neighbouring town recorded a peak of over 2,500 cases per 100,000 residents on January 21 but has now reduced that figure to 1,219.
After access from the town was blocked off, all non-essential businesses were shut on January 11.
Frantic petitions to the Junta de Andalusia to stop schools opening were turned down by the regional government.
Parents, organising themselves by social media, decided to take action themselves, with 95% refusing to send their children to classes.
Despite the right-wing Junta’s rebukes, their actions were supported by the local PSOE councillors who said they were ‘acting more responsibly than the regional government’.
Although this week the amount of children attending school has reached 85% as cases dropped off, the stand-off continues.
As lockdown measures have started to take effect, La Linea mayor Juan Franco has thanked citizens and businesses for their cooperation.
“I want to thank the efforts being made by the population for self-isolating and our businesses for sacrificing themselves by remaining closed,” he said.
Despite the decrease overall, 42 new cases were reported yesterday.
There are still nearly 3,000 cases in the La Linea area, out of a total of almost 5,000 since the pandemic begun.
So far, 60 people have died from the coronavirus in La Linea and nearly 2,000 have recovered.
The police have fined more than 8,700 people for breaking lockdown restrictions since the lockdown started.
Gibraltarians have been forced to limit their visits to Spain to La Linea until this week when they were limited to only essential business.
The spread of the virus has been blamed on Gibraltar bringing the British strain across the border.
The news comes as Gibraltar saw active cases drop to 204 with 21 in hospital and no deaths recorded in the last day.
There are still ten patients in Critical Care and another 11 in the COVID-19 wards.
