New study of lockdown compliance in Spain | Toni Albir, EFE

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A new study by Data firm, Satya Insights shows that Madrid, Malaga, Zaragoza, Palma, Seville and Barcelona, were the Spanish cities that respected the lockdown best, in that order.

The study analysed the behaviour of the population in the ten biggest cities in Spain over the last six weeks, using a completely anonymous monitoring campaign of mobile devices.

During the fourth week of confinement the number of people who stayed at home all day was 43% in Madrid, 43% in Malaga, 40% in Zaragoza, 38% in Palma, 37% in Seville and 36% in Barcelona.

Followed by, 35% in Valencia, 35% in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and 34% in Bilbao and Murcia.

In the sixth week of the State of Emergency, the restrictions were relaxed and only 36% of the population in Madrid and Zaragoza stayed at home all day, followed by 35% in Malaga, and 32% in Seville, Barcelona and Palma.

The population who least respected the lockdown in week six were Bilbao with 25%, Murcia with 26%, Gran Canaria with 30% and Valencia with 31%.

“The number of people staying at home coincides with the weeks when the Central Government ordered non-essential businesses to shut down and fatigue kicked in, generated by seclusion and lack of economic activity,” according to company CEO, Pablo Reaño.

He points out that initial data analysis suggests that one of the reasons why the situation in Barcelona was aggravated is because the confinement follow-up was lower than it was in Madrid, which had much higher levels of contagion from the beginning of the pandemic.

“However, this cannot be the only reason," says Reaño, "since there are other cities, such as Seville and Bilbao, that had a similar or lesser follow-up of confinement and didn’t have such a rapid increase in infections.

The main difference is that in Madrid and Barcelona a much higher percentage of people use public transport than in other big Spanish cities.

The data shows that the fall in public transport use in Barcelona was 81% compared to 87% in Madrid, 92% in Seville, 86% in Valencia and 88% in Malaga.