SOME 70,000 people have been ordered to lock down in Galicia tonight after a local COVID-19 spike.
The Regional Government will seal the borders of the La Mariña area in Lugo from midnight until Friday.
Internal travel will be heavily restricted within the coastal comarca in the north of the province of Lugo.
During the five-day lockdown, bar and restaurant capacities will be slashed, with all establishments forced to close at midnight every night.
All movement in and out of La Mariña will also be banned apart from for work and other essential reasons.
It comes just 24 hours after a new ‘local lockdown’ in Catalunya saw more than 200,000 people confined in the province of Lleida.
In La Mariña, which comprises more than a dozen municipalities, a coronavirus outbreak was detected on June 24.
During the following 10 days, the number of cases had shot up to 85 by Saturday, according to PCR test data.
The area’s caseload now stands at 106, with most of those infected being asymptomatic or showing mild symptoms.
President of the Galician Government Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, said the outbreak had been traced to ‘two or three bars’ in the Port of Burela.
The Galician Minister of Health Jesus Vazquez Almuiña informed the mayors of the affected areas of the lockdown in a video call today.
La Mariña will exit its new lockdown on Friday, just two days before it is due to take part in the Galician regional elections on Sunday.
Feijoo, who is of the conservative PP party, said: “Our pulse did not tremble and it will not tremble now,” and added, “the number one priority is public health.”
However his socialist election rival, the PSOE’s Gonzalo Caballero, said the situation in La Mariña had ‘gotten out of hand’.
He said Feijoo’s Government had ‘acted late’ and added: “The numbers are going to grow over the next few days in a way that worries us.”
Around Spain there have been several other local coronavirus outbreaks since the country’s state of alarm ended on June 21.
Madrid, Aragon and the Balearic Islands have all seen new local COVID-19 spikes, while Andalucia has battled several, including at Malaga’s Red Cross Centre.