Spain calls in army to help trace Covid-19 contacts ahead of school reopenings

Spain has called in its army to help boost the country's Covid-19 track-and-trace efforts as cases rise faster than anywhere else in Europe ahead of schools reopening.

Addressing Spain’s regional health authorities that are struggling to trace contacts, Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, announced on Tuesday that they can now call on 2,000 specially trained members of the armed forces to assist medical teams.

Mr Sánchez noted that some regions had been more successful than others in controlling the virus since the end of Spain’s three-month lockdown on June 21.

However, he insisted that the new school year “must start as planned and proceed normally” in September after several regional authorities have said they are not prepared for 100 per cent attendance.

The Madrid region, which has the fastest-growing and largest caseload in the country, has come under fire for taking four months to reach its target of 400 contact tracers. Medical experts suggest that at least double that figure is needed.

Fernando Simón, the government's Covid-19 spokesman on Monday urged Madrid to take “drastic action” to stem a rise in cases, after the number of coronavirus patients in hospital rose by 24 per cent to more than 1,500 over the last four days.

In total, Madrid has racked up more than 108,000 positives for Covid-19, more than a quarter of the national total of 405,000. More than 44,000 people have died, according to Spain’s excess death statistics since March.

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To help the regions impose the measures they need to control the spread of the virus, Mr Sánchez said that his government would support local leaders who declared a state of emergency on a regional level. This would prevent judicial challenges to local lockdown measures, such as the decision by a Madrid judge to block a ban on smoking in the street and the closure of bars at 1am.

Ruling out an immediate return to a national state of emergency, Mr Sánchez said that the measures regions could apply are not limited to confinement, while he also urged regional governments to adopt Spain’s Radar Covid mobile app.

“If we can reach more than 20 per cent uptake, it will reduce the impact of the pandemic by 30 per cent,” Mr Sánchez said of the contact-tracing app that has been trialled in the Canary Islands before being rolled out by other regional authorities.