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COVID-19

Spain toughens coronavirus lockdown as all non-essential workers told to stay home

All non-essential workers in Spain must stay home over the next two weeks in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced in a press conference on Saturday.

Published: 28 March 2020 19:23 CET
Spain toughens coronavirus lockdown as all non-essential workers told to stay home
Photo: AFP

Spain's government will halt all “non-essential” activities from Monday March 30 as a means of stopping as many Spaniards as possible from leaving their homes and risking infection.

Sánchez told journalists the new legislation will be passed on Sunday in an extraordinary meeting of Spain's Council of Ministers and apply to non-essential workers until Thursday April 9, the day before Good Friday.

All affected employees in Spain will receive paid leave and will be able to make up lost work hours over an extended period of time when the isolation period ends.

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“All workers in non-essential economic activities must stay at home for two weeks,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised address, in a measure that follows similar moves in Italy.

“The most important thing is to slow the number of people being taken to hospital,” he said. “The virus is hitting us with relentless brute force.. (and now) is the time to intensify the battle.”

Up until Sánchez's announcement, whether employees should go to their workplaces or work from home was decided by companies themselves.

As a result, Spanish labour experts had to inform workers they could face absenteeism penalties if they chose to work from home due to their fears of exposure to Covid-19.

Shops and businesses with the exception of supermarkets, pharmacies and some hairdressers and dry cleaners' have been closed across Spain since March 15. Construction work had also been allowed to continue. 

The new legislation will mean Spanish workers in non-essential fields (which excludes healthcare workers, supermarket workers, pharmacists etc) will no longer be obliged to head to the office in the midst of Spain's worst health crisis in decades. 

The death toll in Spain surged over 5,600 on Saturday after a record 832 people died in 24 hours, and the number of infections soared over 72,000, the government said.

Spain currently has the world's second-highest coronavirus death toll after Italy with 5,690 fatalities as of Friday March 27.

Spain went into lockdown on March 14 but the numbers have continued to grow, with a worrying rise in cases among healthcare personnel.

 

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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