Spain’s Prime Minister tries to prepare country for “worst yet to come”

During his speech, Sánchez tried to prepare citizens throughout Spain for the hardest moments yet to come. “We are at a very critical moment and very hard days are coming, for which we have to prepare ourselves from the psychological, emotional point of view.”

He predicted that worst time for the country, in its battle against COVID19, is expected to arrive by the end of next week, asking Spain to prepare to be “very strong, very strong”. “We still have to receive the impact of the hardest wave and it will push all our moral capacities to the” limit “, he said with emotion.

He has commanded all Spaniards to be “united” now that the wave is going to “come,” while the country, he said, does what it can to avoid contagion and to “flatten the curve” while maintaining “morale”.

He made clear that the hard times to come over the next few weeks will change people: “It depends on us to change ourselves for the better.” He emphasised that risk “is everywhere” and hence the necessity for general confinement that he has decreed.

During his speech, Sánchez has admitted that Spain is one of the countries most affected in Europe by the pandemic and recognized that the virus has several different characteristics that separates it from those of the common flu,  saying that it spreads much faster than this and it is more lethal.

For this reason, it has insisted on the need to comply with the measures adopted by the Government for the confinement of citizens. One of the biggest concerns he has conveyed tonight is that of “buying time,” which is needed for two reasons. On the one hand, to prepare the health system to be able to cope with all those infected and, on the other, to ensure that a vaccine can be found.

He has once more made it clear that he will not argue with other administrations or with the presidents of the autonomous communities, noting that his duty is “to maintain unity”. “Nobody in my government is going to argue” with any political adversary, because everyone’s enemy is the virus, he stressed.

On the eve of his second videoconference with the regional presidents following the declaration of the state of alarm, Sánchez made plain that he will not spend even “a second” of his time on the criticism other administrations, despite the fact that both the president of the Catalan Government, Quim Torra, like the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, have complained that the Health Service was making it difficult for them to access medical supplies.

He has affirmed that these things seem minor to him in the “critical” situation in which we find ourselves. In this context, he has pointed out that if someone distances himself from the Government, he will approach with the best intention and if someone expresses disputes, he will try to reconcile differences.

The most serious situation “since the Second World War”
Pedro Sánchez has said unreservedly that this is a “catastrophe” for which Humanity was not prepared and pointed out that world leaders recognize that this situation is the most serious since World War II. He explained that in Spain, only the very old, those who lived through the war, keep in their memory collective situations harder than the present ones.

Other generations, he added, had never had to face something “so hard and difficult” and he believes that it is in adversity that it really shows what we are made of.

“When all this happens, and it will happen soon, we will know if we are generous or brave, if we just complain or if we were the ones who helped combat it,” he said.

Society’s response, “exemplary”
All the countries of the world will suffer, he said, from this pandemic and that each government is taking extreme measures. Although he pointed out that Spain is one of the countries where the crisis is most serious, along with Italy, he has not been able to give a clear explanation of why.

Sánchez underlined that the response of the citizens has been “exemplary” and has considered that if something can be extracted from all this it is that “this disgrace is bringing out the best in us”.

“I take full responsibility”
Sánchez has stressed that by virtue of his position he assumes “all responsibility” for managing the crisis to stop the spread of the coronavirus in response to a question about whether he was also taking responsibility for what was done before the number of coronavirus infections in Spain increased exponentially.

The question alluded, specifically, to the management undertaken in January, February and early March, when the Women’s Day protests took place on 8M.

Sánchez replied: “For the first of March, April, May, June, July, August & September … and until we find a vaccine. I am the President of the Government of Spain and I take full responsibility.”

He added that one of the requirements that he demands of himself and that he demands of those who make up his team is “greater commitment and dedication”. “We are not resting -in the government-; we are working intensively to tackle the pandemic,” he added.