Suddenly, all that good cheer from last week seems to have evaporated on this manic Monday. The Autonomous regions, always looking to pick a fight with Madrid, are claiming that because the Central Government insisted on distributing incoming supplies themselves, it has lead to a three-four day delay in hospitals receiving PPE and regions receiving their portion of the 640,000 new tests that just arrived. Madrid counters that they wanted to distribute the materials based on proportion of cases and this was the best way to do it.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister, Carmen Calvo, was hospitalized with respiratory issues. The right wing Partido Popular, noting that Begoña Gomez, the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is infected, has asked: who will take over if the prime minister goes down?
The answer would be Pablo Iglesias, the second Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the left party Podemos, and a rabble rousing lefty who ascended to his post by helping negotiate a coalition government after multiple deadlocked elections in Spain. Iglesias seems to invoke fears among conservatives the same way Bernie does back in the U.S. Perhaps the Partido Popular, who were thrown out of office for widespread corruption, believes that if they ask the question enough, like a stubborn child who won’t take no for an answer, the response will magically change?
As if that weren’t enough, the Internet providers told everyone to cool it and STOP SENDING VIDEOS via the cell phones. My humor feed went dark.
Where is everyone, I texted to my friend?
She never answered. (Probably working, which is what I should have been doing instead of checking my phone every 14 seconds for funnies.).
Meanwhile, here in San Sebastian, a balcony polemic erupted! Not everyone was enjoying the strobe lighted discos of Bera Bera or the now famous DJ of Morlans, who had been dragging his equipment to the balcony to give the kids a party at eight PM. Given that some of those folks complaining were elderly and sick, and health care workers who needed to be sleeping at that time, out of respect, the parties have shut down.
Not the clapping though. Every night at the appointed hour, thousands of people emerge to their balconies and windows and clap hands to reclaim their existence to their neighbors. In about a week, it will still be light at 8 PM and I’m hoping to see my neighbors instead of just hear them. I hope this will be uplifting.
But, we’re not there yet. After the 8 PM clap tonight, I checked the local newspapers online. Among my headline choices:
Emergency Medical Workers Find Deceased Bodies and Neglected Patients at Nursing Homes.
Health Studies Show Virus Differentiating Between Sexes in Spain too.
Spaniards are Buying Less Toilet Paper and Olive Oil but 78% More Beer.
After a complete day of Desmadre–which loosely translates as discombobulation (although in Spanish it’s a lower diction word than that!), I clicked on the last headline first. It’s nice to know I’m lodged in a country where people are more worried about their stomachs and mental state than their assholes.
And, more seriously, are NOT hoarding supplies.
I did go back and read the first article. The authorites refuse to say where this happened and how many, but in some cases, patients had died and because they were infected, workers could not remove the bodies. In other cases, it appears workers just left.
On the other hand, there is a vast shortage of PPE, so what’s a low paid worker to do? What would you do if you were the sole supporter of three children at home?
As I was reading, up popped another headline. In Madrid, the main funeral home declared they would not collect any bodies because they too did not have enough protective gear.
Oy.
All of this on Day 9, when Spain has not yet hit its peak.
The news out of Italy is encouraging though. Two days of both declining death rates and new cases. If that trend holds it suggests Spain could start to see cases peak sometime later this week. The death rates will be high, but the overall length of the pandemic might be shorter.
And Madrid has converted a convention center to a makeshift hopsital with capacity for 5,500 patients, to treat the less severe cases.
And there was this one funny that landed in my box: the Italian mayors screeching and swearing at everyone to go the fuck home.
Funny?
Not funny?
Well, a little bit.