The town hall was to say that there were bells, just that they were quieter than usual. So quiet, it would appear, that some missed them and had to tuck into the twelve grapes at five past midnight. Any normal year and there would probably have been demands for someone's head to roll, but 2022 arrived and things were as they had been in 2021 - not entirely normal.
Concerts off ... again
To this end, the town hall had to bow to the inevitable and postpone the concerts for the Sant Sebastià fiestas. The councillor for citizen participation, Alberto Jarabo, hasn't had much luck with his concerts. Covid in 2022, Covid in 2021, and not quite Covid in 2020 - Storm Gloria had instead been ripping through the city.
There was better luck with the Three Kings. So comparative normality reigned.
DIY sick leave
Omicron was spreading so rapidly that the previous week's forecast of up to 4,000 new cases a day was soon out of date. The health service's primary care system could no longer cope, partly because of all the demand for sick notes. Doctors were spending all their time either signing people off or back on to work.
Sick leave had increased by 270%. And that was last month. Needs were now such that pharmacies were pressed into initiating the sick leave process and the health ministry announced a do-it-yourself online sick leave system that will be operational some time this coming week.
The army joins the campaign
The vaccination campaign, now with renewed vigour and benefiting from the arrival of the army, was going more rapidly than it had been, but it would have been quicker still if some 26,000 individuals in the Balearics, who appear to know better than around 960,000, were rolling up their shirt sleeves (or whatever) and would thus not need to schedule a test 48 hours or 72 hours in advance of going for a menú del día.
The winter tourist
There was more ammunition for the anti-mega-cruise ship lobby, when fifteen people were taken off a mega-cruise ship after testing positive, a fate which - let's face it - could well befall passengers on cruise ships which aren't of the mega variety.
With cruise passengers offering one of the rare sights of a Majorcan January - foreign tourists - the monthly tourist figures gave us a reminder of how dramatically tourism falls off in winter. From having been first among Spain's regions over the summer in terms of tourist numbers (a position normally held by Catalonia), the Balearic Islands slumped to sixth place in November - just under 150,000 tourists.
More positively, Boris having announced a relaxation of travel requirements for the double-vaccinated, Jet2 launched special offers and saw bookings soar to pre-pandemic levels.
The Balearic debt
The Balearic government, rarely slow in pointing the finger of blame at Madrid for any financial shortfall, was sniffing the opportunity of getting that nice Sr. Sánchez to wipe off some 4,000 million euros of debt that it owes the Spanish government.
A ploy that has been aired on previous occasions, it was now beginning to look vaguely plausible, as Francina Armengol proposed a new system of regional financing. "Fiscal federalism" would apparently come with an in-built debt pardon.
No comments
To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in
Currently there are no comments.