Barcelona goes into 'voluntary lockdown': City's 1.6m residents are urged to stay home and avoid groups of more than ten after spike in coronavirus cases
Residents of Barcelona have been urged to stay home and not gather in groups of more than ten in order to fight an increase in coronavirus cases.
But the regional government, in Catalonia, stopped short of imposing a mandatory lockdown for Spain's second-largest city and said the measures were meant to avoid having to do so.
Residents of Barcelona, which is one of Spain's tourism hotspots, are encouraged to shop online and only go out of home when it's absolutely essential, regional officials told a news conference. Nearly 1,300 more people were confirmed or suspected of carrying the virus in Catalonia on Thursday, the highest daily increase in weeks.
Barcelona is where most of the new cases have been identified, according to the region's health department.
In total, Catalonia has seen 79,595 coronavirus infections and 6,913 deaths, out of a nationwide total of nearly 259,000 cases and 28,416 deaths.
The measures to control the new outbreak also involve the limiting of cultural and sports events.
Restaurants will have to limit their capacity to half the usual amount.
The Catalan capital - home to 1.6 million people and one of Europe's most visited cities - has seen its number of coronavirus cases jump from last week.
The regional government's spokeswoman, Meritxell Budo, has said that stricter measures such as a full lockdown would only be avoided by reducing social activity and venturing out for essential activities such as work.
'We must take a step back to avoid returning in coming weeks to a total lockdown of the population,' Budo said, barely three weeks after Spanish confinement measures were lifted.
Residents had to 'act quickly and decisively to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation as in March,' she added.
When the epidemic first hit Spain, the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared a state of emergency on March 14, allowing it to impose one of the world's tightest lockdowns.
Catalonia and the neighbouring Aragon region, where coronavirus cases have also spiked, are now of most concern to the Spanish authorities, as they watch more than 150 clusters of the virus across the country.
West of Barcelona, 160,000 people in Lerida and surrounding towns were placed under lockdown on Wednesday following a standoff between the regional government and judicial authorities.
Mandatory use of masks, even when outdoors, is rapidly spreading across Spain as officials grapple with more than 150 active outbreaks.
By Thursday, 12 of Spain's 17 autonomous regions had approved mandatory use of masks outdoors and regardless of whether social distancing of 1.5 meters (5 feet) can be maintained.
The new measures come after Catalonia's authorities locked down Segrià County, in which 400,000 people live, earlier this month following a surge in coronavirus cases.
And residents in the regions of Tudela and Pamplona in Navarra, northern Spain, were advised to wear masks and stick to social distancing to prevent the spread of the disease.
At least 23 guests at a wedding in Tudela, including the bride and her mother, were struck down with coronavirus.
In Pamplona, 60 miles north of Tudela, five new cases of COVID-19 were identified in the same family.
The warnings followed the decision to reimpose a lockdown La Marina, which lies 90 miles east of La Coruna in Galicia.
Entry into and out of the town has been banned, with gatherings among the town's 70,000 citizens limited to ten people or less.