Now, three years later, things look different. “Now we know that many of the decisions we took were the right ones”, says the mayor of Mijas, Josele González (PSOE). Now, three years after the state of alarm was decreed on March 14th 2020 and Mijas, like the rest of the country, stayed at home because of health restrictions, we can look back and reflect on what was done and what happened: the confinement of the population, the temporary closure of businesses or the use of masks for a virus that, since then, has caused 13.7 million infections and almost 120,000 deaths in Spain, according to the Ministry of Health.
“None of us were prepared to take the decisions we took at that time, such as closing parks, closing beaches, public spaces, increasing the cleaning service...”, says the mayor, who recalls that many of the decisions were taken in an empty Town Hall, in which there were barely three people, as the connection with the different groups that were organised was by telephone or WhatsApp.
The ideas were clear: “We had to transfer this capacity for reaction and management to the citizens of Mijas, who at that time were waiting for messages of encouragement. Now we know what COVID is, how it spreads, the dimension it has had, but not at that time”, González explains. “At times I was really scared”, he adds. “Leaving home alone, taking your own car, going to the Town Hall, passing several Civil Guard checkpoints, wearing a mask at all times, seeing the cleaning services, the Legion and the UME passing through your municipality and at the same time organising all those visits is very impressive”. I didn’t know then, he says, “if the decisions I was making were the right ones” and there were many of them.
Being at the side of the elderly was one of them. The death of his mother in December 2019 and knowing that COVID “would have wreaked havoc with her” as she was immunosuppressed helped him, he says, “to empathise much more with those elderly people who were alone in their homes”. Attending to this sector of the population meant resolving “complex” situations, such as “having to manage food and medicine collection services or attend to the personal needs of each person”, says the mayor, who points out that he managed to respond to everything thanks to “an incredible network of volunteers and staff from the Local Police and Civil Protection”.
FAMP award
Other “important decisions that were taken was the acquisition of a COVID protection kit consisting of masks and hydroalcoholic gels for each citizen of Mijas. “Now we see it differently, but at that time it was something fundamental and that applies to all social protection measures, such as the Food Bank, which were put in place”, says González, who also highlights the collaboration of private entities “so that no one had the problem of filling their fridge in those difficult times.
All these measures meant that “Mijas has been an example in the management of the pandemic, as endorsed by the Andalusian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FAMP), which awarded us the prize for Local Governance in the pandemic throughout Andalusia, mainly for the aid to the self-employed and family businesses of the OREA Plan. 3500 family businesses received them at a crucial time when most of them had to close down”, he says.
“Thanks to this aid and the commitment and support we have given from the Town Hall, today, a few years later, Mijas has the lowest unemployment rate in the last 14 years and we are fortunate to be, and I say this because I think it is a source of pride, the first municipality in Andalusia in terms of the number of self-employed and family businesses. This exemplifies that thanks to the commitment of the Town Hall we have come out of the crisis very well and, at the same time, that Mijas is a municipality and a Town Hall that generates opportunities”, he concludes.
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