The province of Alicante will enter Phase 3 of the de-escalation plan today, Monday 15 June, along with the rest of the Valencian Community. Following the request made by the Generalitat on Tuesday the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, and the director of the Coordination Centre for Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, authorised the move following Friday morning’s meeting of the monitoring committee.
In phase 3, the Consell can assume the adoption and control of the whatever measures it feels are appropriate, as well as deciding how long to stay in the phase. The only thing that is outside its authority is to grant mobility to a different autonomous community.
Among the changes that this phase allows is interprovincial mobility within the Valencian Community. In other words, people from Alicante will be able to travel to the provinces of Valencia and Castellón, and vice versa, which can be key to stimulating local tourism. Likewise, the time slots for going outside disappear completely (in Phase 2, only the periods for the elderly and those most at risk were kept).
Other changes that Phase 3 incorporates include the opening of discotheques and nightlife venues to a third of capacity, although the dance areas cannot be used.
The decree increases from 50% to 75% the capacity allowed in hotels, shops, shopping malls, restaurants and bars, 100% on terraces, churches, museums, theatres, as long as safety distances can be maintained. The other establishment that can reopen from Monday are children’s playgrounds, betting shops, casinos and the like.
As for hotels and shopping centres, they also gain ‘capacity’ with the passage to zone 3. Thus, the common areas of shopping centres may be put back into use, as can the common areas of the hotels.
The most important change that will apply in phase 3 is the authority of the Generalitat to manage it’s own situation and measures. It can also decide just how long it wishes the Valencian Community to remain in Phase 3 and when it will adopt the so-called ‘new normal’.
If everything goes according to plan, the period in Phase 3 will be no more than one week, according to the Minister of Health, Ana Barceló.
This will mean that from today more than 70% of the population (34 million people), will be in phase 3.
Only the autonomous community of Madrid, the Castilian-Leonese provinces of Salamanca, Segovia, Ávila and Soria, and the health areas of Barcelona, Metropolitana Norte and Metropolitana Sur, and the health area of Lleida will remain in phase 2. Galicia, meanwhile, will pass to the new normal phase.
