Hotspot Madrid: government to blame?
The Autonomous Community of Madrid has imposed local lockdowns in several districts in the lower-income south of the Spanish capital and neighbouring towns. Over the last two weeks the region has registered more than 1,000 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. Left-wing commentators blame the conservative regional government and demand the resignation of its leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Madrid got everything wrong
Pointing to a study comparing the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Madrid and in New York, Mónica García, a doctor and left-wing city councillor, demands the resignation of the President of the Community of Madrid Isabel Ayuso in eldiario.es:
“The main measures that explain the disparity between these two cases: the number of Covid tracers and how swiftly the inside spaces of cafés and restaurants were reopened. Ayuso's management went in the opposite direction to that in New York, because it did everything possible to reopen as quickly as possible without being prepared for Phase 1, and then failed to recruit enough tracers or more staff in primary health care and public health services. Its public health management has become a danger to the economy. ... Ayuso should have the decency to resign now.”
Poor paying the price of neoliberalism
Privatisation and corruption have left the region in its current miserable state, writer Luis García Montero counters in infoLibre:
“The consequences of the neoliberal politics that have dominated life in Madrid for years are obvious. We see them in its hospitals and nursing homes, in its public transport, in its fragile labour market and its courts. ... The pandemic has simply brought to light an evil that has been festering for years. If the public health system survives, even in this precarious state, it will be thanks to the dedication and efforts of the medical staff. ... It's not difficult to understand that these policies are widening the gap between rich and poor and that corruption, privatisation and lack of investment are behind the chaos in Madrid.”