The Government now encourages the communities to decree house confinements themselves regardless of the alarm

The autonomous communities will have to carry out the domiciliary confinements that they consider appropriate to appease the second wave of COVID-19 through ordinary health legislation and the corresponding judicial authorization. That is the response that the Government gives to the autonomies that raised the possibility of carrying out temporary confinements to smooth the curve. Pedro Sánchez does not plan to modify the alarm decree that the Council of Ministers approved a couple of weeks ago with the aim of providing the autonomous communities with the necessary and homogeneous legal coverage to face the pandemic.

Several autonomous communities, including Asturias, Castilla y León and Euskadi, raised the Executive with the possibility of carrying out temporary confinements similar to the one decreed in March. The Government wants to avoid this situation at all costs, it maintains that we must still wait to see the effects of the measures implemented fifteen days ago, such as the curfew, and even Dr. Fernando Simón has said that he does not believe it is necessary. Moncloa, however, considers that in any case the autonomous communities will have to make this decision and carry it out through the General Health Law of 1986, according to El Confidencial has advanced and government sources have confirmed to elDiario.es.

The Government therefore refuses to include home confinements in the measures covered by the state of alarm, despite the fact that it has defended that putting them in place for six months would serve to provide autonomous communities of the legal instrument necessary for the restrictions they had to carry out in the face of the pandemic. The decree includes the limitation of social gatherings to a maximum of six people, the curfew and the perimeter closure of the autonomies or a part of them. These measures may be applied by regional governments when they deem it appropriate during the next half year. Government sources now defend that the state of alarm was applied to "give other options to less invasive communities."

However, the Government invites the autonomies to decree home confinements outside of that legal umbrella and the solution it gives them is ordinary health legislation. The regional governments that intend to carry out this type of restrictions will have to issue the corresponding order and receive the endorsement of justice. Precisely one of the arguments to decree the state of alarm was the different interpretations of the ordinary legislation that the courts made and that led some to endorse the restrictions against the rejection of others.