'Temps de Nadal’. This is the title of Alcudia’s annual Christmas programme. The list of events was still available for consultation on Thursday on the town hall’s website, but the image to click on for ‘Temps de Nadal’ had an addition - “Suspes”. While this means what is sounds like, suspended, there is little chance of the health situation improving so quickly that the suspension is lifted. Christmas events are therefore cancelled.
The programme includes (included) concerts at the auditorium today and on Boxing Day; the Matins service and the Cant de la Sibil·la at Sant Jaume Church and the Mare de Déu Church in the port on Christmas Eve; mass on Christmas Day and Boxing Day; the traditional singing of the La Balanguera and Alcudia hymns, the Alcudia Band of Music and the Christmas greetings from the mayor at the town hall on Boxing Day.
None of these, it would seem, will now be taking place. The only events to survive the cull, which was announced by Mayor Barbara Rebassa on Tuesday, will be the Papa Noel and Three Kings parades on December 23 and January 5 respectively. And these won’t be as they would normally be. Spectating from balconies, windows and doors will be in order. The routes have been specially adapted so that they cover most of the municipality. They will be the same routes on both days - one for the town; another for Bonaire, Mal Pas and Barcares; a third for Alcanada and the port as far as the Horse Roundabout; and the fourth from the sports centre to the Playa de Muro border, taking in Sunwing, Tucan, Lago Menor and Bellevue.
The routes have been posted on the town hall website, and they bear some similarity to the ones that the police adopted during lockdown for their evening drive-pasts with sirens wailing.
It was almost inevitable that the events would be called off, especially once the number of cases in Alcudia started to increase. On Thursday last week there were 35 active cases. A week later and there were 84. Alcudia, given that it is the seventh largest municipality in Majorca (by population), had got off very lightly. For weeks the number of cases was in the twenties or lower. The recent increase just proves how rapidly situations with the virus can change and how easily the virus spreads.
The same applies elsewhere. Last week I took sharp intakes of breath in seeing how the number of cases in Pollensa had suddenly gone up again - by twenty one day, by 35 the next. In Sa Pobla, as we know, there has been the screening because of the huge rise there. Touch wood, and also for Muro, the numbers do appear to be coming down, although they have been rising somewhat in Santa Margalida.
Meanwhile, the regional health ministry took the decision on Tuesday to intervene at the DomusVi care home in Alcudia after there was an outbreak of the virus that affected fifteen residents and three members of staff. The first positive test, that of a worker at the home, was on December 8. The health ministry will take temporary charge of the home for a three-week period, it having already stepped in at the Seniors Pollença, where an outbreak affected nineteen people.