Spain must legislate for future lockdowns as new pandemic ‘probable’

James Badcock
Thu, 21 December 2023 

The country decreed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in March 2020, with mandatory curfews and limits on social gathering - Javier Cebollada/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Spain must legislate for future lockdowns as a new pandemic is “probable”, according to public health experts.

The country decreed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in March 2020, but the legal basis for the move was later overturned by its constitutional court.

During the pandemic various Spanish courts revoked orders mandating curfews and limits on social gathering.


Following an audit of the country’s response to the pandemic, health experts urged officials to prepare for the next deadly pandemic by laying down legislation for lockdowns and other emergency action.

They said another highly serious respiratory virus pandemic in the short or medium term is “not just possible, but probable”.

Spain’s legislators should create “a clear and sufficient framework that provides legal certainty to decisions, whether through a new pandemic law or reforms of existing legislation”, they said.

Beaches once heaving with tourists were deserted during Spain's lockdown - DESIREE MARTIN

The report, titled Evaluation of the Performance of the Spanish National Health System against the Covid-19 Pandemic, found that Spain’s health system was unprepared for the events of 2020.

It supposedly lacked an effective early-warning system and the ability to scale up available treatment capacity.

The evaluation said that a special health crisis committee should be formed by the government at the start of a pandemic, advised by scientists.

The onset of Covid-19 saw criticism of decision-making in prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s government, which eventually admitted that no specific expert advisory committee had been formed.

Among other key recommendations are the need to strengthen local healthcare facilities and establishing a reserve of PPE materials and ventilators in intensive care units.

Work is also needed, the experts said, to develop an effective tech-based track-and-trace system, with Spain’s Radar COVID app having detected only 125,000 out of the 13 million infections that took place between August 2020 and September 2022.

The report also says that greater coordination between regional health services and care homes should be established.

Of Spain’s 122,000 dead from Covid-19, more than 34,000 were from care homes.