After nearly two years of COVID-induced uncertainty, Madrid’s bars and restaurants had hoped to bolster their finances with solid bookings over the holiday season, but rising contagion of the Omicron variant has triggered a wave of last-minute cancellations in the country, leaving the restaurants empty.
“We all assumed… we’d be able to make some money and pay off many items that were past due,” Juan Lozano, head waiter at the La Querida restaurant in Madrid’s Pozuelo neighbourhood, said.
However, the Omicron variant’s lightning-fast spread over Europe has propelled Spain’s infection rate to new highs, decimating reservations, with only four of La Querida’s two dozen tables booked on New Year’s Day.
On Thursday, the 14-day infection rate hit a new high of 1,775 cases per 100,000 persons, more than eight times the rate a month earlier and up from 890 in late January 2021.
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