Latest: Coronavirus in Spain figures (16 Oct)
ALSO READ fully updated report (19/9/20): Madrid in partial lockdown, with regional government under spotlight
The socialist (PSOE) Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has written to the president of the Madrid regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the right-wing People’s Party (PP), seeking a meeting to discuss the situation of Coronavirus (Covid-19) in the region.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso has agreed to the meeting [also see Tweet below] and it will take place on Monday at noon.
Latest figures released by the Health Ministry on Thursday show that Madrid – the worst-hit region of Spain for Coronavirus – has now seen 43,939 new infections in the past 14 days – a total of 181,959 since the start of the pandemic. There have been a total of 8,970 Coronavirus-related deaths in the region – 138 in the past 7 days.
The Madrid regional government is a coalition between the PP and the Ciudadanos (Cs) party, with the support from Spain’s far-right Vox party.
The letter from Sánchez seeking a meeting follows on from the vice-president of the regional government, Ignacio Aguado, from the Cs party, calling on the Spanish government to ‘actively get involved’ with helping to combat the spread of Coronavirus across the region.
In a press conference on Thursday, Aguado said that ‘the situation of the epidemic in Madrid is not going well. It is getting worse. We are going to have to make greater efforts’.
On Thursday, Isabel Díaz Ayuso tweeted that Madrid ‘has been alone for too long’ and that she was pleased that the Spanish prime minister ‘had finally agreed to meet with her’.
La Comunidad de Madrid ha estado demasiado tiempo sola.
Celebro que el presidente del Gobierno acceda por fin a reunirse conmigo. https://t.co/owsZSSotru
— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) September 17, 2020
Earlier this week, health authorities in Madrid said that new restrictions on movement to slow the spread of the virus, would come into effect either on Saturday or Monday.
Regional health chief Antonio Ruiz Escudero had said the Madrid government was working on a series of measures ‘to restrict mobility and reduce activity in certain areas .. where the virus is most-widely transmitted’.
Commenting on the recent Coronavirus figures released, the Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa said, ‘We have to do whatever is necessary to control the situation in Madrid’ where we have ‘what is likely the biggest problem’.
