COVID-19

Foreign Minister, Arantxa González Laya, has said that ‘there may be adjustments’ in the rule to show a negative result from a PCR test in order to enter Spain from a high-risk country, although the changes might be minor. Speaking in Brussels she was ‘aware’ of the many complaints received from different sectors and that her team was ‘examining’ some of the issues. Complaints have included the language in which […]

The president of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig, announced measures affecting Christmas via a TV briefing last Saturday. Read the official resolution in Castellano and Valenciano here. The Valencian Community contains the provinces of Alicante, Valencia and Castellón and includes the Costa Blanca. Here's a breakdown of what you need to know: Border closure – The border surrounding the Valencian Community will close to neighbouring Murcia, Castilla-La Mancha, Aragón and […]

Spain's Supreme Court has revoked a less restrictive prison status awarded to nine Catalan political figures previously sentenced to jail for their part in a secession attempt in Catalonia. The status would have allowed them almost daily release. The court said that such a measure was 'premature' given that none of the nine had served half their sentence and most not even a quarter of it.

Spain plans to vaccinate at least a third of its 47 million residents by June, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said, with the COVID-19 immunisation campaign to start in January. Some 2.5 million people will be vaccinated in the initial stage, which will last two months, Sanchez said. Elderly care home residents and those looking after them will be first in line along with frontline healthcare workers. The second stage […]

Cataluña will not relax coronavirus restrictions on Monday as originally planned because of worsening infection rates, prompting some ski slopes to postpone their planned opening next week. The winter skiing season has become a source of tension among European countries, with some allowing resorts to open and others, like Spain’s neighbour France, banning it and planning border checks to stop people from crossing the border. In Cataluña, which borders France, […]

Internet searches for rural houses in Spain have doubled in regions badly hit by coronavirus cases and restrictions. A report from Spain's leading online property portal Idealista said online inquiries into rural homes in Aragón jumped from 18.9% of total searches in January to 35.2% in November. (Aragón was one of the only autonomous communities in Spain to see more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants during the second […]

The opening of a new coronavirus hospital in Madrid has been met with protests. The Isabel Zendal hospital was built in three months at a cost of nearly 100 million euros. Madrid's government said the hospital will eventually have a capacity of 1,056 beds, which will ease pressure on the region's health-care system during the pandemic. But the cost of the hospital and concerns over the lack of doctors and […]