Forecasts are a risky business but in this moment of isolation and anxiety I want to share my optimism on the pandemia for Spain. This work is inspired by frantic reading about the pandemia since I first posted about its risks on January 27th and my work for the Spanish government at Coronamadrid.com.

Covid-19 Forecast for Spain

One week from now daily deaths will be down from the around 900 of yesterday. This week we will see peak daily deaths and peak hospitalizations. We will have spare hospital capacity in two weeks and enough supplies including masks.

Two weeks from now Spain will stop some of the most unusual and restrictive isolation measures like never allowing children out and forbidding isolated walking and running. These are allowed in most of Europe now.

Three weeks from now massive testing will arrive in Spain and show that the reason we had so many deaths is that there was a high level of contagiousness before lockdown and some during lockdown. Millions will be surprised to test positive in antibody tests. We will discover that Covid is much less lethal than what we thought in terms of percentage of infected population and mostly a risk to the elderly. We will also discover that social cohesion that had given so much support and care to the elderly and made Spain a world leader in longevity, is what sadly killed so many old in this pandemia: unusual level of contact between young and old.

Four weeks from now lockdown will end for those of working age. Schools will reopen. Those over 70 will remain in isolation as they make 90% of the deaths.

Social distancing and mask wearing will continue until June. Outdoor life will help lower contagiousness.

Weekly testing and isolation of positives will be implemented and managed via a geolocalization app.

By early July Spain will be where Korea is now. Monitoring testing but low deaths and hospitalizations.

Thanks to isolation and implementation of the above mentioned strategies post isolation, total Covid deaths in Spain for 2020 will be around 15k to 25k which is the same or slightly more than total flu deaths in 2019 of 15k.

Spain will win the war against Covid but we will not return to full normal until a treatment or vaccine is developed by 2021.

Spanish 2020 GDP will be down 10%, tourism will be especially hard hit. GDP of 2022 will be equal to 2019 GDP. And in terms of government damage and poor thinking what Pedro Sánchez did to fuel the pandemia by allowing demonstrations and large gatherings he will do to fuel bankruptcies by making it illegal to fire workers. Hence disproportionate economic damage.