02 Journal of the Plague Year

Times of Coronavirus: Life in Spain

“And here I must observe again, that this necessity of going out of our houses to buy provisions was in a great measure the ruin of the whole city; for the people catched the distemper, on these occasions, one of another” (Daniel Defoe, History of the Plague in London).

Things have changed little since the 1700s. Even though the whole country is shut down and even more stringent measures were implemented on Monday that annihilate all economic activity, people still wish to go outside. Therefore they must derive what little pleasure they can by going out to buy groceries. The government has warned that it is against the law to go to any store not within walking distance of one’s house or apartment. So the corner grocery stores are booming.

In my neighborhood in Granada, everyone lives in apartment buildings, which is typical of most of Spain. Shopping for groceries means visiting the butcher’s and/or fishmonger’s and then going to another small store for fruit and vegetables. The next stop is to the bakery for a loaf of bread, and finally to the grocery store (two aisles) to buy whatever is left. Since the shops are so small, only one person can enter at a time in each place, except for the grocery store, where there is a quota of five people.

This means that it is necessary to wait in a line outside. People stand one meter apart while they wait their turn to enter. This is the only face-to-face social event of the day. It is when people share their stories of how they are coping. Yesterday a lady lamented that her roots were progressively more evident and that the drug store would not sell her hair dye (or any cosmetics) since they were regarded as“frivolous” items. I told her about my son in Texas, who complains to me because he cannot go to the mall, and can only go on walks to the park with his daughters. This story generated a collective “eye roll” from everyone in the line, and gave them their first and perhaps only laugh of the day. No one wishes to mention the mounting death toll.

The numbers here change and are published at noon. This is followed by a press conference in which different members of the government usually appear. Their faces reveal that they had thought that winning the elections would be more fun and that they would rather be anywhere else. I can imagine them flipping a coin to see who will go in front of the cameras to tell the bad news. Their discourse is divided into two parts. In the first part, they mention the “peak” of the exponential curve. We are always getting nearer to it or are approaching it or about to view it in the distance. It is an exercise in trying to say exactly the same thing, but using different words. Things are always on the point of changing, but invariably remain the same. The second part of the press conference is devoted to telling us how complicated/complex/challenging the next week will be, and that we must prepare ourselves for even greater sacrifices.

At the end, the Minister of Health (who usually draws the short straw) must answer questions from the press. Since he lacks the panache to blatantly refuse to answer “smarmy” questions, he achieves the same objective in a more subtle way. All questions from the press are previously censored, and only “non-smarmy” ones are permitted.

Although he usually tries to end the press conference by saying something optimistic, like the figures are “stabilizing”, no one believes him anymore. The truth is that people keep dying, and now it is no longer just the old. The new way to improve the number of dead people is simply to ignore them. The government refuses to count the people who have died at home or in an elderly-care facility, even those with clear symptoms. If you have died without being diagnosed (and this is easy since there is a severe shortage of tests), then you did not have coronavirus. In certain regions of Spain, forensic doctors have been told not to waste their time on doing autopsies of those people. Dead is dead.

Cataluña is one of the regions in Spain that has been particularly hard-hit. Hospitals in Barcelona are overflowing. The regional government there has told the doctors who go to pick up the sick and take them to the hospital that the critically ill with a poor prognosis should be persuaded to remain at home, where they can die surrounded by their family (and thus not occupy a bed or use a ventilator).

It is hardly surprising that death has become a big business. Funeral parlors are working 24 hours a day. Because of the number of bodies, Madrid is storing corpses at the ice-skating rink (I read that New York is now using refrigerator trucks). This has led to a new euphemism. “Poor Juan! He went skating.” In fact, the government finally had to regulate funeral prices because certain establishments were charging abusive quantities for wakes, mass, coffins and other paraphernalia even though wakes are prohibited and funerals of more than three people are against the law. A priest does say prayers, but he can only spend seven minutes on each corpse.

However, amid all of the death and tragedy, there are moments and gestures of great meaning and transcendence. Every evening at 8:00 since the beginning of the lockdown, everyone goes out on their balconies and spontaneously claps for ten minutes to thank all of the healthcare workers, policeman, firefighters, and military personnel, who are keeping people safe, often despite themselves. The clapping is heard throughout the city and is often accompanied by music. “Resistiré” [I will Survive], an oldie by the Duo Dinámico, has now become the national hymn that people play from their balconies.

Finally, there is hope. Medical protection is being manufactured in rural populations, where people of both sexes have dusted off their sewing machines to make reusable facemasks. A dressmaker’s shop that formerly specialized in flamenco dresses has recycled and is now making protection suits for doctors. People with 3-D printers are creating parts that help to adapt Decathlon scuba diving masks and to convert them into ventilators. It is evident that if we wait for help to come from China or anywhere else, we will all be dead before the material arrives. The only way to obtain material is to make it ourselves. In the end, we are like the Little Red Hen, who had to make the cake by herself.