Costa del Sol’s true infection rate ‘concealed for two weeks’

OFFICIALS in southern Spain have been accused of deliberately concealing warnings about an uptick in Covid-19 cases on the Costa del Sol over the final weeks of the holiday season.

This week, a spokesman for the Andalusian regional government admitted “concern” over a rise in cases in coastal resorts such as Marbella.

Citing more than 1,100 new cases in both the city of Malaga and the Costa del Sol in the past two weeks, Elías Bendodo said: “We have to start talking about community transmission of the virus.”

But Adelante Andalucía, the Leftwing opposition party, has revealed a warning from a regional government epidemiologist more than two weeks earlier, on Aug 24, that describes the situation in the same terms.

“Covering up this information for two weeks is reckless and may have caused incalculable damage,” said Toni Valero, spokesman for Adelante Andalucía.

“Lying and hiding the truth during a pandemic is putting people’s lives in danger,” said Susana Díaz, leader of the main opposition Socialist Party in the region. Ms Díaz demanded that Juan Manuel Moreno, Andalusia’s president from the Popular Party, offer a public explanation.

The document from Aug 24 noted that the Costa del Sol area had reached 163 confirmed cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days, five times the level the Andalusian government considers of no concern.

The tourism-dependent district of Marbella was far higher, on 311.

Now, Malaga’s transmission rate has topped 200 per 100,000 inhabitants. The average across Andalusia stands at 129.

Andalusia’s government points to its strong performance since the pandemic started, with the region accounting for just under 38,000 of the more than half a million confirmed cases in Spain, despite having 18 per cent of the country’s population.