Madrid requests doctors, police reinforcement as Covid-19 cases surge

Madrid have made a request for an urgent reinforcement of foreign doctors and police as they registered 1,290 new coronavirus infections.

This was disclosed by deputy head of the regional government on Thursday September 24, 2020.

Ignacio Aguado said the region needed 300 doctors from outside the European Union who had worked in the first wave of the pandemic, but could not hire them immediately due to complex regulations.

He also requested that an additional 222 national police officers is needed to enforce quarantines and fines in districts now back under partial lockdown.

“We’ve decided to formally request logistical help from the military to install (hospital) tents, carry out tests and disinfection tasks in each of the areas under restrictions,” Aguado said

Residents in the mostly lower-income neighbourhoods where infection rates are highest say the measures are inefficient and unfair.

“The battle against the virus is not in confining, it is in primary healthcare, where we can test for the positive and negative so we can confine (just) the people who are truly infected,” said retiree Nieves Marcos from the Usera district, one of those under partial lockdown.