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Catalonia shuts down late night shops in bid to stop ‘botellons’

Catalan authorities approved a new restriction on 24-hour stores after the weekend saw people partying in the streets to defy a ban on gathering in bars and restaurants.

Published: 19 October 2020 18:12 CEST
Catalonia shuts down late night shops in bid to stop 'botellons'
With bars and restaurants closed, people turned to botellones. Photo: AFP

Procicat, the Catalan civil protection agency introduced early closure of 24 hour convenience stores across the region forcing them to close overnight from 10 pm to 7 am. 

The measure comes after a spike in COVID-19 cases last week which led to several new restrictions, including a 2-week shutdown of bars and restaurants beginning last Thursday at midnight. 

 

Speaking to Radio4, the Minister of Home Affairs of Catalonia Miquel Sàmper cited concerns that the closure of bars and restaurants has led to an increase in “botellóns,” or drinking in the street, and that closing 24-hour stores at night would help limit this.

“You can fool the police,” he said in a radio interview, “but you can’t fool the virus.”

In the same interview, Sàmper reiterated that a curfew was not on the table. 

In Barcelona alone, city police said they broke up around 1,000 people involved in botellons over the weekend. 

By Sam Harrison in Barcelona

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COVID-19

Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

Sweden's Public Health Agency is recommending that those above the age of 80 should receive two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine a year, once in the spring and once in the autumn, as it shifts towards a longer-term strategy for the virus.

Published: 23 December 2022 10:53 CET
Public Health Agency recommends two Covid doses next year for elderly

In a new recommendation, the agency said that those living in elderly care centres, and those above the age of 80 should from March 1st receive two vaccinations a year, with a six month gap between doses. 

“Elderly people develop a somewhat worse immune defence after vaccination and immunity wanes faster than among young and healthy people,” the agency said. “That means that elderly people have a greater need of booster doses than younger ones. The Swedish Public Health Agency considers, based on the current knowledge, that it will be important even going into the future to have booster doses for the elderly and people in risk groups.” 

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People between the ages of 65 and 79 years old and young people with risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes, poor kidney function or high blood pressure, are recommended to take one additional dose per year.

The new vaccination recommendation, which will start to apply from March 1st next year, is only for 2023, Johanna Rubin, the investigator in the agency’s vaccination programme unit, explained. 

She said too much was still unclear about how long protection from vaccination lasted to institute a permanent programme.

“This recommendation applies to 2023. There is not really an abundance of data on how long protection lasts after a booster dose, of course, but this is what we can say for now,” she told the TT newswire. 

It was likely, however, that elderly people would end up being given an annual dose to protect them from any new variants, as has long been the case with influenza.

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