Alex Trelinski
FIVE areas in the Murcia region will cut indoor hospitality capacity this week due to rising COVID infections, but there are no imminent plans to introduce a COVID passport scheme.
Hospitality businesses in Abaran, Alhama de Murcia, Fuente Alamo, Mazarron and Torre Pacheco will be restricted to 30% indoor capacity.
Outside terrace limits remain at 100%.
Measures in the five municipalities have been triggered automatically as they are now in the ‘very high risk’ category for coronavirus infections.
Despite the localised changes, the whole of Murcia is still classified as ‘low risk’.
Due to the lowish overall figure, the weekly Monday meeting of Murcia’s COVID Monitoring Committee decided to take no other action.
That includes the use of the EU COVID certificate as a COVID passport for hospitality businesses.
The neighbouring Valencian Community starts a passport scheme this Friday after it gained legal approval this Monday from the regional Superior Court.
Murcia’s hospitality group, HoyTu, called for similar measures in the region, taking in a wide variety of sectors- not just hospitality.
The document is only used in Murcia on a voluntary basis for nightlife venues to achieve full capacity in areas where there is not a high COVID rate.
Murcia’s Health Minister, Juan Jose Pedreño, said the option of a passport is ‘put on the table’ every week at the Monitoring Committee meeting but they had so far decided not to proceed with it.
As in last Monday’s briefing, he pointed out that unvaccinated children aged under 12 were the main source of new regional COVID infections.
READ MORE:-
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