Fernando Simón, the director of the Centre for Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, said at the weekend that as borders are reopened, there is an expectation that the number of imported cases of coronavirus will increase. But he stressed that the country's public health services are "very well prepared to control outbreaks". Making a distinction with "something massive", he added that "as long as they are outbreaks, we have the mechanisms to control them".
Simón supported the resumption of tourism, observing that "we have to understand that in Spain we live from tourism to a very significant degree". "Perhaps in the future we will live from science, but for now we do so from tourism."
Although the test tourism plan in the Balearics will now only be a week long because of the decision to reopen Spain's borders earlier, the Balearic government has arranged for a number of "aparthotels" to be reserved for possible contagion from tourists. There are nine of these establishments in Majorca and two in Ibiza, with one in Minorca due to be added. They will be used "if necessary" in order to isolate any tourists who might be asymptomatic. It may well be that they continue to be reserved beyond this week's pilot, but this has yet to be confirmed.