With the unbelievably high number of COVID-19 cases in Barcelona, the hospitals had quickly run out of beds for all of these incoming patients. In order to help fix this problem, municipal facilities and hotels were transformed into hospital centers. The first facility that was changed was the CEM Olimpics Vall d’Hebren and this allowed over 130 more patients to be treated. I think that opening up these areas was a great way to be proactive against the virus and allow more people a chance to survive. My host dad (a doctor in the city) said that Madrid was already to the point of having to choose between people to save (this was before I’d had to leave and before the outbreak truly hit Spain) I can’t imagine how bad it is now. I’ve been looking at the number of cases and deaths online and it’s truly heartbreaking. It’s also the fact that the number of cases has no way of being 100% correct as some people haven’t been tested. I personally believe that when I was extremely sick in the Hospital for the 6 days that I’d had the virus, but since the “outbreak” hadn’t truly happened yet, I wasn’t tested. The scariest thing about this virus to me is that if you don’t get it yourself, you’re bound to have someone close to you get it. It seems like now the daily cases are decreasing and I’m hoping that Spain is at the tail end of the virus now. I can’t imagine how incredibly hard these doctors and nurses are working during this time and how selfless they have to be to willingly put themselves on the front lines like this. Sadly, I believe that a great number of these doctors and nurses will have some sort of PTSD seeing so much suffering and death on a daily basis.
My Experience with Catalan Culture 