Falling Back, 41 & 42. The Curfew Hour.

Here we go, again. This midday, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, declared a state of alarm. The constitution only allows one to last two weeks, but he is going to ask the Congreso to prolong it until the beginning of May.

However, this doesn't mean we have to stay home completely upon pain of fine. It means that the regional governments have to power to restrict our individual freedoms in the name of public health. What is extendable to every region, however, is a curfew, nominally from midnight to six in the morning, but each region can modify the beginning and ending hour as it sees fit. Also, reunions can't exceed six people, though each region can restrict that further. Here, in Galicia, they're restricted to five except in Santiago and a few other places, that don't allow anyone to meet anyone else. Each region can also decide if its residents can travel within it, or if it closes the regional borders, and any local lockdown, if necessary. What this state of alarm does, is give legal backup to those regions that have tried to restrict movement, but found themselves confronting a judge that declared those restrictions illegal without a declared state of alarm. 

So now, unless we have a special permission, we can't leave the house during the night. The only reasons will be to go to work, go home, or go out for medical reasons. The entire list will be published some time today, but I doubt it will include many more exceptions. So much for a midnight walk on the beach, or along quiet streets. Also, so long to Christmas and New Year's reunions, so far. These restrictions will last for two weeks, at the beginning, but the consensus seems to be that they'll be enforced for longer. If not even religious processions were allowed at Holy Week this past spring, it seems pretty obvious that Christmas get togethers will not happen. 

Already some regions had begun to enforce curfews. And there were also curfew breakers. In Valladolid last night, about thirty got together in the Plaza Mayor to protest. Some were negationists about the virus, others were mad at the government (most likely because they believe the hype that it's a "communist-bolivarian regime"). When the police came by to identify each one and issue fines, one spit out, "We're dying of hunger. Freedom!" Another said that he had had family members die, but that he wasn't going to allow his children to die of hunger, and he had nine. (In this day and age, that says either that his wife was very fertile and contraception didn't work correctly (yes, I know someone that happened to) or he and his wife are very Catholic and didn't believe in contraception. Which leads me to believe they are very right-wing and against the government, so it's most likely the latter.) Then there were the typical people who just had to drink outside at night with friends, otherwise it wasn't Saturday night. That the bars were closed didn't matter, because so many of these weekend drinkers buy the alcohol during the day in the supermarkets, then take it to parks and other solitary places, to drink with their friends. 

We should have seen it coming. France has a curfew from nine in the evening to six in the morning. Bars in Italy are closed at six in the evening. Other countries are imposing more severe restrictions. We were not going to be an exception, especially since we've been leading the second wave here in Europe since last month. Contagion is above three hundred per hundred thousand population nationally. In certain areas, it's much worse. The prime minister said the objective was to bring it down to twenty-five per hundred thousand. That will take a while; most of the winter, probably. 

Life continues.