Spain's Coronavirus Crisis Accelerated as Warnings Went Unheeded
MADRID — At the end of January, a German tourist became Spain’s first coronavirus patient. At the time, the health threat seemed for the nation as remote as the tiny Spanish island of La Gomera, where he was treated. Two weeks later, the German walked out of hospital, and Spain celebrated being again “virus free.”
It proved a very brief respite. But even as more cases surfaced, Spanish officials continued to stress that the coronavirus was being imported, notably onto another island by tourists from Italy, where hospitals were already under siege. The story line was that Spain faced an external threat, but did not risk a domestic epidemic.
But then on Feb. 26, a resident of Seville, who had not done any traveling, tested positive. A week later, another man in the region of Valencia became Spain’s first coronavirus victim, starting a grim count that is approaching 14,000 dead. Spain now ranks second in the world, behind the United States, in total number of cases.
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Even as Italy locked down its northern regions on March 8, Spain’s first coronavirus cluster had already emerged among participants of a funeral service. Mr. Sánchez’s government did not put the country under the highest level of alert and impose a nationwide lockdown until March 14.
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Italy, Britain and France, he noted, declared their own lockdowns only once they had more infections than Spain. He stressed that International Women’s Day, when 120,000 gathered in Madrid on March 8, had also been celebrated on the streets of Brussels, Berlin, Vienna and Paris.
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And now that trip is being rescheduled for later this year. Fuck the virus. 
