I’d taken the canine down, too, and the youngsters, since they hadn’t been outside in days. It was midnight—proper after we finished dinner—and I figured they might carry a trash bag and get a breath of air. The dog had barely peed when the patrol car did a U-flip, blue lights flashing. I explained that I needed helpers with the trash bags (and, let’s be sincere, recycling all of the bottles). "No hay excusas, caballero," the officer told me. "Youngsters inside." We had been fortunate; fines for violating the lockdown can go as high as 30,000 euros.

It’s day three, but feels like day 30, of a nationwide shutdown meant to curb, if not arrest, the spread of coronavirus in what has now grow to be one of the worst-hit countries within the outbreak. Confirmed cases in Spain are up to 11,681, with 525 deaths—scratch that: Since I started writing, cases are up to 13,716 and deaths to 558. The curve is steeper than Italy’s.

The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told a close to-empty parliament Wednesday morning that the "worst is but to come." His spouse has already tested optimistic for the coronavirus; King Felipe, who will address the nation Wednesday evening, has been tested as well, via his came up negative. There’s no Liga soccer matches; the Real Madrid staff is in quarantine, which, given how they’ve been playing, is probably for the best. There’s no Holy Week in Seville, no Fallas in Valencia.

It’s a glimpse of what’s coming for you, if it hasn’t already. Italy’s been shut down for weeks; France started Monday. Some cities in the United States are already there; the remaining shall be, sooner or later. Nobody knows for the way long. Spain’s state of emergency was announced as a 15-day measure. The day it was announced, the federal government said it might go longer. Health consultants say close to-total shutdown could be wanted till a vaccine for the new coronavirus is ready. That could be next year.

Since I work from home anyway, I figured a lockdown could be no big deal. I was wrong. I’d swear the youngsters have been underfoot all day, day-after-day for several years, although I am told schools have been closed less than two weeks. Cabin fever is getting so bad I am seriously thinking of trying to dig out the stationary bike from wherever it’s buried. Now my spouse and I combat over who gets to take out the dog fairly than who has to—canines are the passport to being able to walk outside without getting questioned by the police, not less than for adults. Too bad all of the parks are closed.

What was routine is now an adventure: You want gloves and a masks to go grocery shopping. (Essential companies—grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and, after all, tobacco shops are still open.) I haven’t seen any panic shopping in our neighborhood; loads of toilet paper and pasta on the shelves. In fact, it’s hard to panic shop too hard when it's important to carry everything residence a half mile or so on foot. Even a half-case of beer gets heavy going uphill. Associates in different parts of town say the bigger stores have a beach-town-in-August vibe of absurdly overfilled carts and soul-crushing lines.

The worst half, for a metropolis like Madrid, and a country like Spain, is that nothing else is open. Town that is said to have probably the most bars per capita doesn’t have any now. No eating places either. All the many, many Chinese-owned bodegas that dot the middle city out of the blue went on "trip" firstly of March; now they are shuttered.

All of those waiters and waitresses and cooks and bar owners and barbers and taxi drivers—how are they going to final weeks, let alone two months? The federal government plans to throw loads of cash on the problem—possibly a hundred billion euros in loan ensures, possibly more. There are promises of more help for the unemployed. Layoffs are being undone by law. Who’s going to pay for that? Who’s going to have any money to exit to eat if and when anything does open?

The prime minister is right: The worst is yet to come. It’s going to get brutal within the summer. Spain gets about 12 percent of its GDP from tourism. Complete towns alongside the coast live off three months of insane work. This 12 months there won’t be any. Unemployment earlier than the virus hit was almost 14 p.c, and more than 30 percent among the many under-25s. Spain was still, a decade after the financial disaster, licking its wounds and deeply scarred; this is a dying blow, not a body blow.

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