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Every day, the Moncloa Department of Homeland Security issues a document titled Coronavirus (Covid-19). Current situation , which serves as an executive summary of the situation in Spain regarding the pandemic.

On March 2, six days before the massive protests - particularly in Madrid - of 8-M, the government document revealed, black on white, the following: "The possibility of raising the level of the measures to move from a containment phase to a mitigation phase in some specific areas, although this decision has not yet materialized. "

Entering the mitigation phase would have led to the suspension of the mobilizations, as it is a "massive grouping". Other measures to be taken in case of reaching this scenario were the closure of schools and other educational centers, as well as certain selective isolations.

On the same afternoon of March 2, a meeting was held between the Ministry of Health and the health officials of the Community of Madrid, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Castilla-La Mancha . And in that meeting it was decided to maintain the level of alert and continue to exercise extreme caution in the health field. The closure of schools was thus discarded - a decision that the Community of Madrid did not make until day 9, and after threatening to do so unilaterally -, it was ruled out to control mobility and restrict "crowds" such as those that were coming on Sunday 8, for International Women's Day .

When the Ministry of Health ruled out taking more drastic measures, the Basque Health Service decided to apply restrictions in all hospitals in the region to contain the spread of the disease on Day 2. And the Community of Madrid threatened to go further. Despite what was decided at the "technical" meeting, the Madrid vice president, Ignacio Aguado, assured the following day, on March 3, that Madrid did not rule out entering the mitigation phase.

Torrejón and Vitoria, first to activate alert 2

As this newspaper advanced, the Community requested more drastic measures from Health for 10 days, but the Ministry led by Salvador Illa did not consider them necessary.

It should be noted that the first areas in which it was studied to go to alert level two were Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) and Vitoria (Álava), which on March 2 had a dozen and four cases, respectively. If those first precautionary measures had been adopted, the city of Madrid would have followed. The day before the mobilizations, on the 7th, the region was close to 200 cases.

By not going to the mitigation phase at any point in Spain, Fernando Simón , director of the Ministry's Center for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, insisted on March 2 that "it is not recommended to suspend social events" such as 8-M , and only prescribed "prudence". That day, the total number of cases reported in Spain amounted to 119; there are now more than 9,000.

On the same day, a report from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention advised against allowing "crowds" to avoid transmitting the coronavirus . And he did it with a devastating phrase: "During the mitigation phase, cancellations of massive events before the peak of epidemics or pandemics can reduce the transmission of the virus." This is scientific evidence supported by "data from seasonal and pandemic influenza models."

March 3: risk, moderate to high

On Tuesday, March 3, the Department of Homeland Security, which organically depends on the Presidency of the Government, found in its daily report that the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control had "updated its assessment of the risk of infection for the population of the EU ", considering now that" the associated risk for the population is currently considered moderate to high "and that" the risk of the appearance of groups similar to those in Italy is currently considered moderate to high ".

This shows that the Government had taken note of the report, but did not see it necessary to abide by its recommendations. Among them was the call to the EU member states to "promote distancing measures". And one of the main ones was to "avoid mass acts".

On March 3, National Security assured that Health maintained the containment scenario (level one) "since, at the moment, nothing indicates that there is an uncontrolled community transmission and a massive entry of imported cases."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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