Woodchopper wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 7:11 am
sTeamTraen wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2020 11:50 pm
From Monday, everyone in the Balearic Islands will have to wear a mask at all times when out in public. Up to now this was "unless social distancing can be maintained", which in practice meant you only needed one in a shop or on a bus - now you will need one when walking down the street with nobody else in sight. It's still OK to take it off on the beach, though.
This is copying Catalonia, which introduced this rule a week or so ago. One difference is, we are down to a case every 3-4 days, whereas Catalonia is still at 50-100 new cases a day. I guess the authorities here have seen how places like Israel and Melbourne have dropped the ball, and are determined to stay as close to COVID-free as they can get, while 100,000 tourists a week roll in.
Yes, 100 000 tourists sitting on the beach probably won't be a problem. But get them pissed in bars and its a much bigger risk.
164 flights are coming into PMI today. At 150 people per plane that's 25,000. Times 7 because there are a lot of flights every day, minus a bit because Saturday is the busiest day, plus more because the school holidays start next week, plus a bit more because many people stay for 2 weeks... we're probably looking at 300,000 visitors on the island around 1 August. That's way down on the usual peak (there are 450,000 tourist beds here, many of them doubles), but many of those people will be coming from places with higher COVID-19 prevalence than we have, notable the UK and Sweden. So we are bracing for numerous "sprouts" (the Spanish word
brote means a sprout in both the vegetable sense (Brussels or bean), but also an outbreak, leading to much hilarity when reading computer translations of news reports about COVID-19 incidents).
Also, hotels are banned from running buffets, which I suspect means that many of the all-inclusive places will not open at all. So a higher proportion of those who do come will be in self-catering accommodation, or the city hotels here in Palma, and going out to drink locally in the evening. Mrs sTeamTraen and I are mostly going to be staying in, although we're in a fairly non-touristy bit and our local bars are mostly for people who have two cañas while watching the football.