The Spanish publishing industry has gained new clarity on where it stands with the Pedro Sánchez government and is ratcheting up its demands for recognition and assistance in the pandemic.

Two new lockdowns in Spain have coincided with today’s (July 6) news of a double-pronged approach by book publishers there to the market’s anticipated losses of some €1 billion (US$1.1 billion)—€800 million (US$906.2 million) in the internal book market and €200 million (US$225 million) in the external market.

As BBC News reported on Sunday, the northwestern region of Galicia is undergoing new restrictions on some 70,000 people because of a new outbreak triggered, officials say, by transmission in bars. Those facilities and restaurants are being cut back to 50-percent capacity, as reports cite 258 COVID-19 cases in the area. And in the hard-hit Catalonian region, 210,000 residents are under lockdown conditions around Lleida, where a “sharp rise in infections” has been detected.

Having brought its pandemic struggle largely under control—and now demonstrating how quickly new outbreaks can occur—the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center still places Spain at ninth in the world for its caseload of 250,545 infections, just after Mexico and the United Kingdom, with 28,385 deaths making it seventh in the world for fatalities.

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