A RETURN to home lockdowns is not on the agenda for the Valencian Community, according to president Ximo Puig.

The regional leader was speaking this morning(August 26) a day after the area recorded the biggest single 24-hour rise in new COVID-19 cases since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that regional governments have the power to introduce localised State of Alarms to counter virus number rises, and he would give them his full support.

Sanchez emphasised that he did not see home confinements returning due to the situation being very different to earlier in the year.

Ximo Puig said today: “It is useful to have the option but we have no plans to introduce one for the time being,”

“If we were to have a State of Alarm, then it would concentrate on mobility restrictions based on health department figures and not on home confinements,” he added.

Despite the hike in regional COVID-19 cases, Puig appealed for people to look at the figures in context:

“The regional situation is very complicated over new cases, but it is under control and the figures are better than the average for Spain.”

Puig’s analysis is backed up by the official national average figures which show new cases as running at double the current rate of the Valencian Community.

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