Spain's health minister warns against locking up migrants in Ceuta

Mónica García: locking up migrants in Ceuta would be «more harmful than beneficial»

First it was 47 million people locked down over elbichito. Now the proposal is to confine a few thousand migrants in Ceuta, Spain, with no medical records, in the middle of outbreaks of tuberculosis and scabies. And Spain's health minister, Mónica García, argues that such a measure would be «far more harmful than beneficial» for public health.

The statement comes in response to the position of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had floated confinement as a tool for health and migration control in the autonomous city. Against that option, García calls it «excessive» and «counterproductive», an argument that clashes with the experience of the 2020 general lockdown.

The health argument against the outbreak

Those who back the confinement point to the active outbreaks of tuberculosis and scabies among the recently arrived population, and to the lack of medical records, which makes it impossible to know their real state of health. Those who reject it, like the minister, argue that overcrowding and the lack of health screening inside a confinement could worsen transmission rather than contain it.

The ghost of elbichito

The comparison with elbichito hangs over the whole exchange. Those who criticise the minister recall that the government locked down 47 million Spaniards in March 2020 and now refuses to confine a few thousand. That double standard fuels the discontent of much of public opinion, which sees the response as an ideological gesture rather than a technical decision.

The awkward question remains in the air: if lockdown was the right tool against elbichito, why not against an outbreak already in Ceuta? The minister has one answer. Her critics have another. And the available data will not settle it any time soon.