Feijóo calls for lockdown of Ceuta over scabies and tuberculosis
Spain's opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has urged the government to lock down Ceuta over scabies and tuberculosis, reigniting the debate on health, immigration and civil liberties.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Feijóo calls on Sánchez to lock down Ceuta over scabies and tuberculosis
A lockdown of Ceuta is back on Spain's political agenda. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Popular Party (PP), has demanded that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez order the confinement of the autonomous city over a health risk of scabies and tuberculosis. The request, reported by El País, elDiario.es and Libertad Digital, has peine a debate as predictable as it is uncomfortable: is this a health measure or a trial run for control?
A precedent: Feijóo's interventionist pattern
Critics have been quick to point out that this is not the first time. Mandatory vaccination, the scrapping of cars over 10 years old and certain measures during ELbichito add up, for some, to a clear pattern: the Galician politician sees public health as an excuse to restrict freedoms. The comparison with the pandemic's famous "training" is no coincidence: what is scabies today could be anything else tomorrow.
The two souls of the opposition to the measure
Among those who reject the lockdown, there are two strands. One stresses the disproportion: locking down an entire city over two treatable diseases. The other goes deeper: the problem is not scabies, but the lack of a real immigration policy and sovereignty in Ceuta. Confining the people of Ceuta, they argue, treats the symptom and not the cause.
Curiously, there are also those who argue, from a sceptical standpoint, that the lockdown is so unworkable that it is probably only meant to force Sánchez into an awkward position. If the prime minister accepts it, a precedent will be set; if he rejects it, he looks soft on immigration. Either way, Feijóo has already made his move.
On the health front, there are no official figures on the incidence of scabies or tuberculosis in Ceuta, and no authority has confirmed that a lockdown is a measure backed by epidemiologists. For now, the request remains purely political.
Time will tell whether Sánchez gives in. But one does not need to be overly sceptical to remember that when a politician proposes locking down a city, the risk of doing it again later does not disappear on its own.
A lockdown of Ceuta is back on Spain's political agenda. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Popular Party (PP), has demanded that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez order the confinement of the autonomous city over a health risk of scabies and tuberculosis. The request, reported by El País, elDiario.es and Libertad Digital, has peine a debate as predictable as it is uncomfortable: is this a health measure or a trial run for control?
A precedent: Feijóo's interventionist pattern
Critics have been quick to point out that this is not the first time. Mandatory vaccination, the scrapping of cars over 10 years old and certain measures during ELbichito add up, for some, to a clear pattern: the Galician politician sees public health as an excuse to restrict freedoms. The comparison with the pandemic's famous "training" is no coincidence: what is scabies today could be anything else tomorrow.
The two souls of the opposition to the measure
Among those who reject the lockdown, there are two strands. One stresses the disproportion: locking down an entire city over two treatable diseases. The other goes deeper: the problem is not scabies, but the lack of a real immigration policy and sovereignty in Ceuta. Confining the people of Ceuta, they argue, treats the symptom and not the cause.
Curiously, there are also those who argue, from a sceptical standpoint, that the lockdown is so unworkable that it is probably only meant to force Sánchez into an awkward position. If the prime minister accepts it, a precedent will be set; if he rejects it, he looks soft on immigration. Either way, Feijóo has already made his move.
On the health front, there are no official figures on the incidence of scabies or tuberculosis in Ceuta, and no authority has confirmed that a lockdown is a measure backed by epidemiologists. For now, the request remains purely political.
Time will tell whether Sánchez gives in. But one does not need to be overly sceptical to remember that when a politician proposes locking down a city, the risk of doing it again later does not disappear on its own.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (30 replies).
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