Social media has been inundated with footage of people venturing outside across Spain after over 40 days in lockdown. However, the joyous return of children to the streets has been met with mixed and often irate reactions.
Many frustrated citizens decried the lack of social distancing on display as people flocked to the beaches and parks, flouting all health and safety guidelines during what was supposed to be a limited release for the nation’s children.
Children under the age of 14 were permitted to return to the streets accompanied by a parent or guardian, provided they stayed within 1km of their home and were outside for no longer than an hour.
However, the hashtag ‘#Irresponsables’ trended on Spanish Twitter, as many vented their anger at the perceived recklessness of their compatriots spotted in photos and videos showing parks full of children and groups of adults, and beaches littered with people sunbathing – “crowded as if it were the summer,” as one report in Spanish media put it.
“Over 20,000 dead, millions confined in their homes for more than 40 days, doctors, police and workers breaking their goddamn backs for us and now you have the balls to tell us that it’s the teenagers who are irresponsible?” wrote one clearly irate young man from Alicante, who shared images purporting to show crowds of middle-aged people on benches beside the beach.
“Seeing this makes me ashamed and I’m losing faith in society,” said Ana Peleteiro, a national and European champion triple jumper from Galicica in Northwestern Spain. “I hope all of you who behaved this recklessly don’t lean out your windows to applaud.”
“We really deserve extinction,” wrote one rather misanthropic Twitter user.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Minister for Health Salvador Illa said of the fierce online debate over the easing of certain restrictions that people were following social distancing rules “in general.”
Spain is currently experiencing the second-worst outbreak of coronavirus at present, behind the US, with more than 226,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of over 23,100.
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