Spanish Sports Council president Irene Lozano sat down this morning with the presidents for the different Spanish sports federations in order to assess the impact that the health crisis caused by COVID-19 has had in the world of sports.
At the beginning of the meeting, which was held electronically, Lozano thanked the federal officials for their “exemplary role in this difficult situation,” while also highlighting the “positive impact they are having in helping athletes during this time.”
“The world of sport is facing a paradigm shift,” Lozano said. “When we return to normalcy everything will have changed, but we have opportunities to conquer a field, that of sport. ”
During the meeting, Lozano reviewed the measures carried out by the CSD since the start of the pandemic, which among others included the repatriation of athletes who were residing overseas, besides discussing information on government regulations as they applied to sport.
Similar to Italy, many companies in Spain, including training facilities, sports governing bodies and club teams were forced to create what is known as an ERTE (Expediente de Regulación Temporal de Empleo), a term that could translate into “laying their employees off.”
Spain has been on national lockdown since March 15 and is planning to remain as such until April 29, per Spanish outlet El País.
Yesterday, Spain began lifting the national lockdown as the number of new cases is decreasing. Some non-essential services have started coming back to life as the nation neared the one-month-mark since the lockdown order became effective.
The list of services allowed to resume their activity includes health, security and telecommunication services; construction services; cleaning, surveillance, and maintenance services; public transport; and the judiciary.
Restaurants, gymnasiums, training centers, and leisure services, however, are not allowed to reopen to the public as of yet. Some Spanish elite sports teams, such as Real Sociedad (soccer), attempted to resume their training, but Spanish Sports Secretary Irene Lozano intervened in order to prevent that from happening.
During these past few days, the nation has seen a decrease in the number of fatalities, reaching its lowest daily death toll since March 26, according to El País.
According to the website worldometers.info, the nation stands second in terms of total cases associated with COVID-19 as they have reported a total of 172,541 infections and 18,056 deaths.