Abstract
Abstract. The Department of Thematic Mapping and National Atlas at the National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN) has published a monograph on the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The time studied is limited to the first half of 2020 which is the period for which official data are now available. However, for the first time, provisional –non definitive– data have been used. This publication begins with an overview of the impact of this crisis on the world in general and on the European Union in particular. It then focuses on the effects that the pandemic has had on demography and on the National Health Service in Spain. It ends with the consequences that the pandemic has had on the Spanish economy, society and environment. This work has been carried out together with an ad-hoc scientific network. It is the first publication of the Department that has been written both in Spanish and in English with the aim of providing the rest of the world with a geographic-cartographic vision on what has happened in Spain within the frame of the European Union during the first semester of 2020.
Highlights
At the end of 2019, news reached Europe that a new virus had emerged in China
The work was planned to be published in summer/autumn 2021, i.e. only one year after the event. This posed a challenge for the National Geographic Institute; on the one hand, because of its dependence on other agencies for data collection and processing; on the other hand, because of the speed with which the data had to be integrated into the IGN's own databases once they were sent to us; and they had to be filtered, processed, analysed, mapped, provided with cartographic design and editing and passed all quality controls; the accompanying texts had to be written and corrected; the entire work was to be translated into English; and the whole publication had to be laid out, edited, published and made available to the public both on digital and paper formats and in two volumes, one in Spanish and the other in English
The Department of Thematic Mapping and National Atlas at the National Geographic Institute of Spain has published a monograph on the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
At the end of 2019, news reached Europe that a new virus had emerged in China. At the end of January 2020, the first cases of this coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 were detected in some States within the European Union. The National Geographic Institute of Spain (IGN) was at the service of the rest of the Administration during the months of March, April , May and early June 2020 to assist managing the pandemic. The Ministry of Transport asked the National Geographic Institute for maps on road, rail, air and sea traffic to help monitor the extent to which the population was complying with the strict measures of lockdown and travel restrictions imposed by the state of alarm. We considered in June 2020 that the best way to do so was to provide a geographic-cartographic vision of the extraordinary situation that Spain within the frame of the European Union had lived during the first semester of 2020.
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