SPAIN – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pleaded with the United Kingdom to change its decision following the British Parliament’s call to restrict flights to Spain and impose a 14-day quarantine from any one arriving from any of the Spanish regions.
The U.K had issued a heavy mandate of curbing travel as the COVID-19 infected numbers started to slow in pacing but erratically increase due to summer visits of Britons who had been vacationing in Spain trying to come back or those gearing to visit the famous tourist cities in the Spanish isles.
The Spanish government retaliated with trying to convince the British government that Spain was less infected than most of Europe, citing that only a few provinces had contracted the COVID-19 virus in the pandemic with minimal deaths in the main cities, except for Barcelona in the Catalonia region.
The Balearic and Canary islands were against Britain’s decision to halt travel to Spain until absolutely necessary due to the market in the islands being primarily focused on tourism for the many small businesses in these regions.
The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called it “misguided” and argued that the numbers of the cases the British government had over their areas was incorrect and that they had the real numbers to convince them that tourist vacations are perfectly fine in Spain.
The cause for concern that the Spanish government has over this recent decision by the British Parliament is that in 2019, British tourists made 18 million trips to the Spanish cities and isles, making up 11% of Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Junior UK Health Minister Helen Whately stated that the UK must not risk going back to the old situation of rising COVID-19 infected numbers and forget all the sacrifices that were made during the lock-down, agreeing with the quarantine decision by the British government.
Spanish news outlet El Pais calculated that 44,868 deaths would be recorded to Spain’s COVID-19 related deaths if the Spanish Government had counted the deaths as a whole, however the government instead chose only to count those who had died purely of COVID-19.
The UK has a record 45,837 deaths which would place Spain directly as 2nd highest death toll in Europe.
Many British and Spanish citizens who constantly fly to and from the country for work feel the decision is unjust as it hinders businesses from stabilizing during the financial crisis with emphasis on the fact that only Spain had been singled out, sources say.
