The President of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, announced this afternoon that the Government is "working to design and implement as quickly as possible aids for the sectors affected" by the latest measures adopted in Catalonia to deal with the advance of the pandemic. And he demanded that "all institutions should act with maximum involvement" and " should not delay decisions that need to be taken urgently".

In this sense, Pere Aragonès has assured that in tomorrow's conference of presidents he will demand that the Spanish State Government "become involved in the economic and social consequences derived from the new wave of Covid-19". And he has stated that "it is absolutely essential" a Covid fund for 2022 as there has been in 2020 and 2021, which "has allowed to have economic resources to help health and affected sectors".  "Public support is essential; ours will be there, but we need it to be fully accompanied", he reiterated.

The Chief of the Executive made these statements during an informative appearance during the press conference following the Government meeting. He has also advanced that tomorrow he will transfer to the conference of presidents the need for "the measures that have been adopted in Catalonia to be extended to other territories of the Spanish State". He added that "We cannot just settle for the request to have masks on the street again", but it is necessary that "more territories adopt measures to contain the pandemic". Some measures that, he acknowledged, "are not popular, but they are brave and necessary to protect the lives of citizens".

Another of the requests that Pere Aragonès will raise tomorrow will be that the Spanish State Government "should adopt support measures for families who have a child confined due to being in close contact and who must go into quarantine despite being vaccinated ". He noted that "it is essential that they can have a sick leave to care for their children, even if they are not infected". He recalled that The Government already asked for this measure a year and a half ago and described it as "essential, fair and essential", because "we have to make things easy for the citizens if we want to get out in the best way".

"As a government we have acted".

The head of the Government has begun his speech by highlighting the latest figures of the evolution of the pandemic, with almost 11,500 new infections yesterday; more than 1,300 people hospitalized, 340 of them in Intensive Care Units, and another 68 deaths in the last day. The President described the situation as "critical" and stressed that "with the indicators of the pandemic skyrocketing, a government cannot stand idly by, it must act. And as The Government we have acted".

Faced with this situation, the President explained that the measures adopted by the Government, with the advice of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Covid-19, are "hard", but "necessary, essential and reasonable". And he warned that they were "unpostponable" and "could not wait for Wednesday, for the conference of presidents".

In this sense, he explained that last week's indicators "showed a steady upward trend with an assumable hospital incidence", and "did not make us foresee the need to adopt measures for the Christmas and New Year holidays". But he added that the latest indicators show a "radical change of scenario", before which "we cannot wait another day" to adopt measures that "are painful measures and we would not want to have to take, but we assume them out of responsibility", he concluded.

The Chief of the Executive closed his speech by expressing his gratitude for "the effort being made by the citizens as a whole", especially those professionals in the health and care field who "are doing an excellent job".