CORONAVIRUS AND TOURISM IN SPAIN 277 COVID-19. The Order required that all the guests of the hotel in which he was staying remain in their rooms until they were attended and evaluated by competent health personnel, as well as the closure of the facilities in order to prevent the entry of new guests. The arguments, measures and limits reflected in the order can be taken into account by the regional health authorities and by the courts. The crisis of COVID-19 was elevated to the category of “international pandemic” by the World Health Organization, on 11 March, and the Spanish Government approved Royal Decree 463/2020, of 14 March, declaring the state of alarm for the management of the health crisis situation caused by COVID-19 (BOE2 no. 67). It was subsequently modified by Royal Decree 465/2020, of 17 March, in order to strengthen the protection of public health and ensure the operation of essential public services, and has been extended on six occasions3, with the last one, so far, being until 21 June. The only precedent that existed in Spanish law was the declaration of the State of Alarm by Royal Decree 1673/2010, of 4 December, for the normalisation of the essential public service of air transport (BOE no. 295), extended by Royal Decree 1717/2010, of 17 December. This has allowed the Constitutional Court to rule on this exceptional situation through Order 7/2012, of 13 January and Judgment 83/2016, of 28 April. The legal value of the declaration is a provision “with the rank or value of law”, even though it has been approved through a Royal Decree (F.J. 10 STC). After the declaration of the State of Alarm, the Government approved a battery of economic-type regulations (extraordinary benefit for cessation of activities for the self-employed, guarantee of liquidity to sustain economic activity in the face of transitory difficulties, promotion of teleworking, ERTES due to force majeure and economic causes, exemption from contributing to social security for companies affected by ERTES due to force majeure, commercial law measures to hold sessions of corporate bodies and suspension of deadlines for the preparation of annual accounts, among others), as well as health type (different measures that affect health personnel such as extension of the hiring of residents in the last year of training, hiring of doctors without specialist titles, reinstatement of retired health personnel and others, such as 2 Boletín Oficial del Estado (Official State Gazette). 3 The extensions to the State of Alarm were the following: 1) by Royal Decree 476/2020, of 27 March, extended until 00:00 of 12 April; 2) by Royal Decree 487/2020, of 10 April, was extended until 00:00 of 26 April; 3) by Royal Decree 492/2020, of 24 April, was extended until 00:00 of 10 May; 4) by Royal Decree 514/2020, of 8 May, was extended until 00:00 of 24 May; 5) by Royal Decree 537/2020, of 22 May 22, was extended until 00:00 of 7 June; and 6) by Royal Decree 555/2020, of 5 June, was extended until 00:00 of 21 June.
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