The cold weather in Mallorca may be aiding the spread of coronavirus because more people are meeting indoors.
"We already warned that this could happen and that indoor environments had to be avoided,” said Government Decontamination Adviser Margalida Frontera, who pointed out that infections have been rapidly increasing since the weather changed in November.
"The pre-holiday atmosphere, which has made people go out and do more activities or go shopping on Black Friday” is closely related to the rise in contagion.
"In Ibiza we had problems lowering the incidence rate, and only achieved that when we introduced the 22:00 curfew and closed the interior spaces of bars and restaurants,” said Frontera.
She stressed that the interiors of bars and restaurants are considered a risky environment “not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because people who don’t live together are socialising in the same space.”
Worst Case Scenario
“When a certain threshold is exceeded in the incidence of cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days the progression is exponential,” said Frontera. “Mallorca is now at 270 and we have seen other territories at this same level soar above 500 within two weeks.”
She also warned that with the incidence rate at a high risk level the outlook for Christmas is bleak.
"We are in a situation where we need to take measures and precautions so as not to enter into danger," she said.
The 22:00 curfew came into force in Mallorca on Thursday and stricter measures have been introduced in Sóller, Lloseta, Muro and sa Pobla where customers are banned from eating and drinking in the interior spaces of bars and restaurants.
“We are seeing widespread growth everywhere,” said Frontera. “In Palma it is moderate but there has been an increase in infections in several neighbourhoods.”
The Government is scheduled to review the alert level and the restrictions in Mallorca next week.
"When we make these decisions we don’t base them on the figures from a single day, we look at the evolution and the speed of change,” she explained.
If Mallorca is elevated to level 4, the interior spaces of bars and restaurants across the whole island will be closed, meetings will be banned in closed spaces and limited to 6 people in outdoor spaces unless they live in the same home.
At the moment, there are plans to relax the curfew on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Years Day, but Fontera says “that decision may be modified depending on the epidemiological situation.”