The omicron and the January slope empty streets and shops in Barcelona

The omicron and the January slope empty streets and shops in Barcelona

Health crisis

The mass contagios, teleworking and cold slow down the city rhythm

Covid |Third dose of the vaccine, omicron variant and last restrictions, live

Sara Sans, Xavier Cervera (photos)

Barcelona

"We should be tail and you see...There is almost no one, but there are no people on the street, ”he says that in charge of a large Rambla de Catalunya clothing chain.There is no tail in the box and nobody in the testers...In the cosmetics store they offer makeup to all the clients that enter;They are so few...In the shoe store there are more employees than curious.In the optics he has just called a client, who cannot come to graduate, who is confined.In the winemaker, a single table busy.The terrace, empty.This and almost all.There is hardly any traffic.Rambla Catalunya postcard is extendable to the neighborhood and the city.The sixth wave has emptied streets and shops;Reservations in restaurants have plummeted.Teleworking has reduced traffic...And the cold has just finished off everything.

La ómicron y la cuesta de enero vacían calles y comercios de Barcelona

In Barcelona, at a rate between 4.000 and 8.000 new positive per day since the year began, the sixth wave is being noticed, and how.This week the streets have been significantly more empty.In the afternoon, the atmosphere is more typical of a Sunday than of a working day."January has always been a complicated month, but this is being very hard," says Gremi de Restauació, Roger Pallarrols.The January slope is more, much more steep than expected.

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Traffic corroborates the general drop in activity in Barcelona.The rounds, which at the end of November had recovered and even surpassed in rush time the volume of prepandemic traffic, have not registered any collapse this week.The data handled by the City Council indicates that traffic has dropped 8% compared to the same week a month ago and is 16% lower than January 2019.As for public transport, the influx in the subway and buses has been 16% lower than that of the same week of November.An example, the one of the express bus between Les Glòries and Frances Macià yesterday in the afternoon: "Only six passengers have risen throughout the journey," maintains one of its users at the end of the tour.

Gone is left, and not even two months have passed, the euphoria of Black Friday: “It worked very well, it sold a lot and came to reinforce a recovery trend that began after summer;There was some joy and desire to buy and consume, ”maintains Gabriel Jené, president of Barcelona Obeert'Illa...But the arrival and expansion of the omicron variant changed everything.“The Christmas campaign was not very good because on Saturdays and Sundays were holidays and the sales...very bad;In addition, in the center you have to add the lack of tourists, ”says Jené."The activity has struck after kings also on the commercial axes of the neighborhoods," adds its counterpart from Barcelona Comerç, Salvador Vendrell.

"The problem added to this week and that makes everything more complicated is that we come from a disastrous Christmas campaign - Pallarols mandates - with the restrictions and cancellations of group dinners".Restaurants have had to get used to last minute reserves and a level of cancellations that are directly related to the increase in infections."Having the closed night leisure either encourages people to go to dinner, and the business is going very bad at night," Pallarrols acknowledges.

Unlike the other nights, Thursday's was slightly more animated, "but not to throw rockets, if you look inside the premises, there is a place," says a waiter from the Plaza del Sol, in Gràcia.Something similar happens in Enric Granados.Also in cinemas the activity decline has been noticed, “the sensation was recovery, but these days it is true that the thing has stopped, the truth is that there are so many infections...”, Recognizes Sergi Morera, head of programming of Verdi cinemas.

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