At present the Lock Down will conclude on the 26th of this month, however the Government is already working on an extension until the 10th of May.

However, there will be a time more sooner than later, when the restrictions will be lifted, little by little, so if anybody harbours the fantasy that we’ll get a VJ-Day-type declaration and you’ll be able to pop over to Times Square, dressed as a USN sailor and slap your laughing tackle on a passing nurse is optimistic at best… and that goes for our male readers, too.

No, what the Government foresees is a staggered return to activity, especially for bars and restaurants, not just other businesses.

Experts consider that the reopening of small premises shouldn’t be a problem, especially ones that are 400 sq/m of fewer in size, judging by the experience during the pandemic with small food shops, pharmacies and bakers.

Large premises, on the other hand, are more difficult to control because of the amount of entrances and large gathering spaces within as well as customers moving between floors so they will probably remain closed down longer.

“If a restaurant is set up for 50 diners then perhaps only 20 should be allowed in at a given time so that a distance can be maintained between table, especially as you can’t exactly use a mask if you are eating, as you would if you were simply shopping, explained, Benito Almirante, Spokesperson for the SEIMC (Sociedad Española de Enfemedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica).

He concluded by saying that we would have to get used to certain restrictions that would remain in force, like queuing because we can’t all enter into some premises at the same time, as before. And of course, the level of personal hygiene when it comes to washing our hands should remain.

So when is this going to happen? Well, all indications are that it will be at the doorstep of summer – late May or early June. The first step, however, will be allowing children out for X-amount of time per day from the 27th of April before they start letting businesses reopen.

Editorial comment:, if we take a look at two imaginary pie charts, one before the pandemic and one after, divided three ways between small shops, super/hypermarkets and online shopping, we might find the following:

Before the crisis the slice belonging to small shops was losing ground to the other two, whilst in a post-Coronavirus 2020, we might see that the small-shop slice has grown along with the online-shopping slice, to the detriment of department stores.

Lastly, with restrictions on the amount of diners that restaurants can host, perhaps more and more will also supply take-away services.

(News: Spain)