Spain’s summer is well and truly cancelled

In villages and cities throughout Spain, the annual Fiesta of The Assumption is celebrated in great style on 15 August. But not this year.

This year in most places the processions through the streets, the communal meals, the street theatre, the romerías (excursions to the local shrine), the craft fairs, the bell-ringing, the open-air dances, the annual football match against the neighbouring village, the clay pigeon shooting, the bull-running, the bullfights, the open-air chess tournament, the card game championships, the children’s drawing competition, the fairs, the firecrackers, the fireworks, and the all-night carousing are all cancelled.

‘After all, there’s not much to celebrate this year,’ said the vice president of the Castile-León region as he made official what everyone already knew: the party’s over. He had a point: although many of the new Covid cases are asymptomatic and this time around the proportion of fatalities seems lower, the numbers in Spain have been rising sharply in recent days.