MADRID, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Workers from some non-essential sectors of the economy, mainly industry and construction, return to work in Spain on Monday, despite experts warning of the risks of a possible rise in coronavirus cases.
The temporary ban on all non-essential work was imposed for two weeks by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on March 30, two weeks after imposing a State of Alarm and the corresponding lockdown on most of the population on March 14, in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
The spread of the infection has slowed in Spain over the last month from around 20 percent on a daily basis to approximately 3 percent now. But the country had 169,496 confirmed cases and registered 17,489 deaths as of Monday. There are fears that allowing some people back to work will lead to a new rise in cases.
In reality, reopening the economy will only affect a small percentage of the workforce, given that all shops (except those selling necessary items) remain closed, along with bars, restaurants, hotels, schools and cultural venues.
Meanwhile, many people have adapted to home working over the past month and the fact that thousands of companies have opted to use a temporary regulation of work to lay off workers for the duration of the crisis will severely limit the number of workers returning to their posts on Monday.
Some parts of Spain such as Catalonia, whose regional leader Quim Torra has said he opposes a rapid return to work, remain on holiday until Tuesday.
The regional government in the Community of Madrid estimates that around 300,000 people will go back to work in the region, mainly in the industrial and construction sectors.
The central government has issued guidelines advising workers to maintain distances of at least two meters between each other. Police were on duty in Madrid and other towns and cities on Monday morning to hand out face masks to those traveling on public transport.
By 9 a.m. the Community of Madrid had noticed an increase of 34 percent in the number of people using the Madrid metro system in comparison with March 30.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the day was "developing within the normality of the exceptional situation which we are currently in," in an interview on radio station Cadena Ser.
"If the safety of workers is affected, then their activity cannot restart," he added.
However, not everyone agrees with the decision to reopen the economy. Daniel Prieto-Alhambra, Professor of Pharmaco- and Device Epidemiology at Oxford University told Spanish national radio network RNE that the measure poses a "risk of new infections."
"This is the moment when we have the highest number of infections. I don't think it is a good idea that people are exposed to the virus, because there is a risk... With a couple of weeks more (off work), we would have seen an important fall in the number of infections and the hospitals and intensive care units emptying," said the professor.
