Story By: Amanda Morales, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News
A Spanish mayor has prohibited walking along the shore of a local beach for four hours a day to avoid new coronavirus infections.
The town hall of Piles, a municipality in the eastern Spanish Community of Valencian community announced the new rule which means walking is not allowed on the urban beach from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
According to Spanish National Radio Cadena Ser, the new rule is part of an effort by the municipal government to reduce and control possible infections during the summer season in which the Spanish beaches become very full.
In an interview with Cadena Ser, the Mayor of the city, David Morant Ciscar said that experts determined that beaches could be an important point of contagion, considering that the use of a mask is not mandatory in outdoor places and that if bathers remain in one place and only move to have a swim and go back then the risk of contagion is lower.
Morant Ciscar said: “It is an area of the beach where there tends to be a great affluence of people and this measure is a way of controlling them better in case there is a positive case of coronavirus in the area.”
Therefore, beach-goers are still allowed to sunbathe and swim in the sea of the Valencian beach, one of the 134 Spanish beaches that have the Blue Flag award.
Another measure forbids people to come and set-up umbrellas, chairs, and tables to “reserve” a place in the sand first thing in the morning and then leave, a very common practice in these sweltering summer days.
The Mayor went on to say that the new measures will be notified by means of informative posters at the entrance to the beach.
According to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, the number of those infected in Spain amounts to 282,641 cases, of which 28,441 people have died and 150,376 have recovered.
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