The curfew from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. came into force at dawn today in 161 Catalan municipalities –including La Seu d'Urgell, Solsona, Tremp and Alpicat–, after the High Court of Justice de Catalunya will endorse the measure for those municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants that on July 10 exceeded 400 Covid infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days.

The measure will be in force until 00:00 hours on Friday, July 23, and can be extended weekly, also changing the affected municipalities according to their accumulated incidence. Although the Government said that the extension would be requested for two more weeks, yesterday the Minister of Health, Josep Maria Argimon, opened the door to a minimum of four.

When the Government asked the TSJC to apply night confinement, he argued with the latest definitive data, which was from July 10.

This has meant that municipalities such as Tàrrega have been left out despite the fact that yesterday it reached an incidence of 534 cases. In this regard, its mayor, Alba Pijuan, insisted that "it is nonsense that, as they collect consolidated data from July 3 to 10, we do not have a curfew", when the capital of Urgell has the worst rates of the entire pandemic.

Pijuan asked that “they include us in the list” and pointed out that “they cannot make decisions based on data from a week ago, taking into account the rapid evolution that the virus is having right now.”

In addition to Tàrrega, yesterday, Lleida city and Balaguer were about to exceed the threshold of 400 cases, after reaching 392 and 395, respectively. Even so, the measure will only affect 33,520 residents of La Seu, Tremp, Solsona and Alpicat this week, 7.6% of the population of Lleida. If Tàrrega (with 17,445 inhabitants), Lleida (140,403) and Balaguer (17,472) entered, 208,840 people would be affected, 47% of the province's inhabitants. In Catalonia it affects 78% of the population, more than 6 million people.

Interior makes available to citizens on its website a certificate of self-responsibility for those who have to travel. For his part, the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, assured that it is a "difficult but necessary" measure to stop infections, protect lives and the health system. To this measure we must add the closure of all activity at 00:30 in all of Catalonia, the limit of 10 people in meetings and the sale of alcohol after 10:00 p.m.

Likewise, the Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria authorized the curfew and the meetings of a maximum of six people between one and six in the morning in 53 municipalities. The Valencian Country also has the endorsement of the justice system for night confinement.

Two million euros in Mossos overtime for surveillance

The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, explained yesterday that the department will invest more than two million euros in overtime for Mossos agents to guarantee compliance with the curfew. He said that he plans to carry out 100,000 overtime hours of 300 more Mossos agents – apart from those who were already assigned – who will reinforce in towns with a curfew, and assured that he believes that “it is a priority and it is necessary to do it ”. He stated that the fines, from 300 to 6,000 euros, will be proportionate”, and that coordination between Mossos and local police is needed.