Catalans fear COVID-19 risk at Sunday's election

BARCELONA: Freelance photographer Jordi Saragossa is so concerned about the risk of contracting COVID-19 in Catalonia's regional election on Sunday that he tried and failed to be discharged from mandatory monitoring duty and says he will sue if he gets ill.

Like him, around a third of people chosen by a draw to be election supervisors have asked to be exempted, despite assurances from authorities in the northeastern Spanish region that they could be tested for COVID-19 prior to the vote and given protective equipment to wear at polling stations.

"I would sue saying that I had warned them beforehand and that they should cover that cost," the 32-year-old said, referring to the up to 3,000-euro losses he would expect to incur for his business were he to catch the virus. His discharge request was denied by the electoral board because his justification of a potential economic impact was not legally considered a proper reason, he said.

Election supervisors will be provided with two FFP2 masks, a face screen, gloves and alcohol gel. In the specific voting time slot recommended for people who have a confirmed or suspected coronavirus infection, they will also have full-body medical gowns.

The regional government had planned to move the election to May, citing an increasing pace of COVID-19 infections, but a court annulled the move, saying it lacked legal grounds. Octavi Bisquert, 37, a company manager with diabetes, said he had suffered panic attacks when told he had been chosen to supervise a polling station, before the electoral board accepted his doctor's request for him to be excluded. "I felt a huge outrage and fear," he said, stressing he had been working from home for a year with barely any social contact.