It is not Ayuso's fault: London also valued strains and vaccines to veto tourism to Spain

The Government continues its offensive against the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, after the debacle of the PSOE in the 4M elections. The reason, this time, is the ‘veto’ of the United Kingdom to Spain as a recommended territory to travel without restrictions.The Executive has launched the attack against the Madrid region due to its high accumulated incidence (lower, however, than that of the Basque Country and very similar to that of other communities, such as Aragon or Navarra). But the British evaluation system considers, in addition to the epidemiological situation, other factors. A long list of criteria that has been evaluated in each country. «The reasons that have led the British Government to place the countries in each category are weighty: vaccination rates, infection rates, prevalence of worrisome variants, reliability of the data and genomic sequencing capacity to identify variants, “explains a spokeswoman for the British embassy. Although it is unknown what has weighed the most in this first evaluation of Spain, she points out that the examination takes into account all these criteria and not only the cumulative incidence by In Spain, the presence of the British strain, which the Government despised at first, is already dominant. But there have also been cases of other worrisome mutations, such as the Brazilian and the South African. In recent weeks, in addition, infections of the Indian strain have been confirmed, which is causing havoc in that country. And, according to the latest Health report, there are eight other mutations considered of “interest” and under surveillance due to their possible impact on public health. Delay in screening Strains that are of concern to the United Kingdom in assessing countries .It should be remembered that the Spanish Government resisted at the time to take measures to prevent the entry of mutations, delaying, for example, the suspension of flights and other restrictive measures that other countries did decree. The Executive also recognizes that the tracking capacity of these strains is still small. “In Spain, the process of integrating sequencing into epidemiological surveillance is being integrated,” is specifically stated in the report ‘Update of the epidemiological situation of the variants of SARS-CoV-2 of importance in public health in Spain’. points out that “although all the communities are carrying out these surveillance activities based on sequencing, the information available in the Spanish Surveillance System (SiViEs) is still limited.” results show a greater delay than those screened with PCR and the number of sequenced cases incorporated in recent weeks is still low ”, it is assumed. Vaccines,“ positivity ”… The UK risk assessment guide reports that it is carried out ‘Regular monitoring and evaluation of new variants to identify those that may be of interest to the UK’. The evaluation examines the tests carried out, the inci dence, genomic sequencing capacity or the country’s links with other territories with strong community transmission of these strains. In addition, “epidemiological data of the country or territory”, “positivity” in the tests carried out or the “doses of vaccination administered per 100 people. In this sense, it should be remembered that the vaccination rate has been widely questioned, although in recent days it has been reinforced.In its latest attack on Madrid, the Government has launched the ministers González Laya and Maroto against Díaz Ayuso to criminalize her from the United Kingdom’s veto on tourism. The Minister of Industry criticized this Wednesday “the statements” of Ayuso “talking about freedom” and He stressed that “freedom is not debauchery.” He even demanded that the Madrid president “correct” her statements and “encourage the population to control themselves.” For her part, Laya, without mentioning Ayuso, attacked “an autonomous community, with a president at the helm who says that what matters is freedom, go to the canes, go to the bulls, mobility whenever you want ”, González Laya has reproached in Congress. In any case, the United Kingdom trusts that, as the summer progresses and vaccination and incidence evolve, some “traditional” destinations, such as Spain or France, may be included in this list. The British Minister of Transport, Grant Shapps, said on Wednesday that “although the number of countries on the green list is initially low, I anticipate that it will grow over time as the situation improves globally, which means more opportunities to open up international travel. “The UK announced last week its intention to keep” strict s requirements for tests and border measures in view of the risk posed by the most worrying variants of Covid-19 and to protect the progress of the vaccination campaign. “This implies, they assured from the British Government,” that only one reduced number of countries in the green category ”.Spain has been included in the ‘amber’ category, which means that whoever wants to travel will have to quarantine upon their return to England and will have to comply with the strict testing regime that already exists for essential travel. Spanish currently does not allow the entry of British tourists to Spain, except residents and essential travel, a ban recently extended until May 31.