Spiraling caseload puts Spain on lockdown,

MADRID

Faced with a sharp rise in coronavirus cases, Spain on Saturday imposed sweeping restrictions on the public, telling all citizens to stay indoors, with limited exceptions.

The government said people could leave their homes to buy food, to go to work if they cannot work remotely, or to seek health care, or to assist the elderly and others in need.

The government also ordered all schools, restaurants and bars to close, extending measures that various regional authorities, including in Madrid and in Catalonia, had taken on Friday.

“Spain is demonstrating in these critical hours that it has the capacity to overcome adversity,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of

Spain said in announcing the new measures.

The final victory over coronavirus, he noted, will only come “when we have a vaccine.”

Sánchez said the government would take steps to oversee and maintain the nationwide supply of food, energy and other basic services.

Health authorities reported a surge of 2,000 new infections on Saturday, the largest daily increase in Spain since the beginning of the outbreak, suggesting that the country is following a curve similar to that seen earlier in Italy.

The death toll in Spain rose to more than 190 on Saturday. Overall, 6,200 people are infected.

“We’re the new Italy,” said Francisco Gutierrez, a 33-year-old street cleaner for the city of Madrid. “We don’t know how long it’s going to last, and we don’t know how much Spain will suffer from this yet.”

Regional authorities in Madrid announced that all businesses would remain closed until March 27, a scenario that echoed what authorities in Italy put in place last weekend.

Earlier on Saturday, as Madrid residents bought groceries and hurried back home, bracing for more restrictive measures to be announced, authorities urged people to remain calm, while calling to maintain a 1-meter distance in supermarket lines.

Yet many said they knew the worst had yet to come.

“Nobody wanted to believe that it could happen to us, too,” Amuda Goueli, an Egyptian entrepreneur who lives in Madrid, said while wearing a mask. “But it is now, and we have no idea how far the pandemic will stretch, or what kind of crises it will trigger here and in the rest of the world.”