Precis

A flamenco dancer with no stage, a restauranteur with no customers, a young woman who wouldn't mind catching COVID and a young doctor pushed to the limit.

These are the people a young Australian reporter encounters when she moves to Spain, the country of her ancestors, in the midst of its worst upheaval since the civil war.

Spain has been hit hard by the pandemic. Over 70,000 people have died, it's endured three waves of the virus and many lockdowns.

Australian Lily Mayers wants to find out how the famously sociable Spanish are coping with the crisis.

Filmed over six months, Into the Outbreak paints an intimate portrait of a country and people under pressure, struggling to survive through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.

In the tourist town of Barcelona, Helena, a successful restauranteur, is fighting to keep her business afloat. She's had to close down two restaurants, let go of 20 staff and is now relying on charity for school fees.

"Many businesses like me are going to die. It's impossible to survive," she says. "I think it's time for me to stop fighting and reconsider my business."

Karime is one of Spain's most famous flamenco dancers. Now she's at home with no stage, no audience and little income.

"Never before in my life have I had such a hard time," she says. "I'll never forget this time. It's so tough."

Mayers meets a group of young people who are happy to risk catching coronavirus so they can keep going out.

"We have to enjoy ourselves, but with a level of consciousness of course, but we have to enjoy our life," says Elena.

In Madrid, Susana, a young doctor, feels like she's been in a war zone.

"I cry on the subway, cry with my friends, with my parents," she says. "We've found ourselves so overwhelmed we didn't want to accept it any longer."

But despite the hardship, all are managing to adapt and survive.

Karime begins to help other artists in need. Susana starts an industrial campaign to improve doctors' working conditions. Elena catches COVID. And Helena creates a new business.

"In this terrible pandemic, where people are losing jobs and family members and just everything is going wrong, the Spaniards have inside of them, this amazing way of just ... enjoying the moment," says Helena.

Flamenco performance

Music

00:00

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  It’s famous for its vibrant culture and love of life, and it’s one of the world’s most popular destinations. But in 2020, Spain went from tourist Mecca to COVID central. The country has lived through three waves of the virus and lost tens of thousands of citizens.

00:10

Lily to camera. Super:
Reporter
Lily Mayers

Almost 6 months ago I left the safety of Australia to move to Spain, right in the middle of its worst crisis in a lifetime. It’s been an extraordinarily hard time for this country;

00:44

Flamenco

at times it’s been confronting to watch.

00:55

Shuttered empty shops

Lockdowns have crushed businesses, the economy is devastated,

01:00

Helena in restaurant

but they’re fighting back.

HELENA:  Little by little. A little bit here, a little there. I have hope, and I have trust that I'll be able to clean up debts and do something new.

01:05

Flamenco

01:18

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Will the Spanish soul survive this year of loss and rise again?

01:21

Title:
Into the Outbreak

01:31

ABC Australia news. Lily reporting.

Newsreader:  "The virus continues to spread through western Sydney's Newmarch House. Lily Mayers is there tonight. Lily, what's the latest?"

Lily: "Jeremy, this morning we learns another resident within the home has died after contracting…"

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  I spent much of last year covering COVID in Australia.

01:36

Lily news report

Lily: "There are now 7,320 cases…"

01:52

Spain virus footage

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  But as a journalist with Spanish heritage, I was struck by how much faster the virus was spreading in Spain. I made the huge decision to pack up my life and go there to report on the pandemic.

01:55

Aerial. Madrid. GFX:
2020 OCTOBER

Music

02:11

Lily in Madrid. Driving from airport. Madrid GVs

02:18

LILY MAYERS, Reporter: I arrive in Spain as the second wave of the virus is peaking.

02:25

We are driving from the airport to our Airbnb and seeing Madrid for the first time. There's people out on the streets,  in restaurants and cafes, people walking around shopping. Apart from the masks it’s hard to tell that there is any crisis happening. But despite appearances, there is ongoing tragedy.

02:31

Lily in church cemetery

The day after I arrive is All Saints Day, when families mourn their lost loved ones. And this year there’s an ocean of grief. The coronavirus death toll has just hit thirty-five thousand. Spain locked down hard when the virus first hit, but over summer, people dropped their guard.

02:56

Lily with Elena, Diego, Galit at café

03:29

I’m catching up with Elena, a young entrepreneur I’ve just met in Madrid. She and her friends Diego and Galit are all in their 20s, working by day and going out every weekend. Young people who ignore social distancing have been blamed for spreading the virus.

03:38

"Do you agree that you, that young people, have exacerbated the problem, or are they being unfairly targeted?"

04:00

DIEGO: During the summer there were probably no restrictions, so there was a little bit of people going out and big gatherings of people. So I do agree that we probably have something to do with the second wave, but I wouldn’t say we are the only reason or even the main reason about it.

04:08

ELENA: We always say let’s do something, let’s have fun, let’s enjoy life. We don’t realise that it is important, actually.

04:25

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  How has coronavirus affected your lives, has it changed the way you live at all?

04:35

GALIT: We have to enjoy ourselves but with a level of consciousness of course, but we have to enjoy our life.

04:40

ELENA: I know that friends that live with their parents, they're more worried than us. I live alone, I live with a friend, so I’m like, I don’t care because if I get the coronavirus – maybe I’m really bad but it’s not going to affect my family.

04:46

Citizens applaud health workers

Music

05:03

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  There’s one group of people who can’t afford to be cavalier. In early 2020, health workers were applauded every night across Spain.

05:06

Hospital interior. Doctors treat COVID patients

But inside hospitals, it was like a war zone. I’ve come to know a young resident doctor, Susana Pardo.

05:20

Susana leaves hospital, walks in street

Susana is finishing another 24-hour shift in one of Madrid’s biggest public hospitals. She was on the frontline in the first wave.

SUSANA:  The patients were crowding the emergency department in a scandalous way. There weren’t even seats for them.

05:34

Susana interview

They had to sit on the floor in the corridors.

05:57

Patients in hospital corridor

Many patients were arriving in a critical condition. We didn’t have enough oxygen tanks.

06:03

Susana interview

Sometimes you left them with an oxygen mask or nasal cannula

06:13

Doctors treat patients

and when you came back after a few hours you found them dead. During March and April, 20 people died every day. I can’t compare to anything I've lived through before.

06:20

Susana in subway

I cry in the subway, cry with my friends, with my parents, for no reason. It happens to me a lot. I know on sick leave because of depression and anxiety. It's quite common now.

06:40

Susana interview

I’ve had this conversation with many colleagues, 'Damn, I’d love to get COVID, so I can take two weeks of sick leave at home, because I need to disconnect from the hospital and the work I do'.

07:05

Susana on train

It’s absolutely repetitive, exhausting and emotionally draining.

07:20

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Despite working long hours, junior doctors in Spain earn very little.

07:33

Strike group rally

07:40

At breaking point, Susana joined a union strike group to fight for better conditions.

07:45

Susana addresses rally

Susana: "We're no longer going to accept that we can be stepped on and exploited when we're the doctors who'll be in charge of the health system into the future."

07:54

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Susana led negotiations with senior officials, but there’s little progress.

08:12

Lily with luggage

Music

08:22

Lily to apartment

[LM1] LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Away from the frontline, life can seem pretty normal, even as restrictions come and go. As one of the few foreigners moving here, I’m surprised and sometimes a little embarrassed to find I’m in a privileged position.

08:32

Lily surveys apartment and view

This is our new apartment. We feel incredibly lucky to have found a place like this. It’s notoriously hard to find a secure apartment like this in the middle of the city. It's even harder to find one that's got a balcony and views of all the beautiful buildings in the city.  The only reason we were able to get it, is because it was an Airbnb, and with international tourism dropping so much because of coronavirus, the owner was pretty keen to get a tenant in long-term.

08:52

Lily on empty train to Barcelona

Music

09:26

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Tourism used to account for more than twelve percent of Spain’s economy, but it’s ground to a halt. I’ve been given permission to travel to Barcelona, to see how it’s faring.

09:30

Tourists, Ramblas, Barcelona

This is how it looked before COVID, the historic centre was packed with tour groups, the locals called the old city ‘Disneylandia’ and wanted tourism reduced.

09:45

Empty Ramblas

Now, that’s just a memory.

10:07

Lily with Resi at Sagrada Familia

10:14

Resi Nickl has been a guide in the city for 12 years-- she hasn’t had a single day of work since last March. She’s agreed to give me a tour of the ‘new’ Barcelona.

RESI:  We're standing in front of Sagrada Familia,

10:23

which you have behind me in the sunshine. Usually, this would be packed with people. We're talking about almost five million people a year coming to Barcelona just to see the site behind me, this Sagrada Familia, this unfinished church.

10:37

Lily and Resi walk on the Ramblas

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  So before COVID, could you ever imagine seeing Las Ramblas so quiet?

RESI:  No. To be honest, not. Usually, you were just trying to avoid people somehow, steer through, and now it's actually quality walking, we could almost say here on the Ramblas!

10:52

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  But before COVID, locals here were complaining that they couldn't come to places like this because it was too packed, too unpleasant to be with all the tourists. Have they got their wish now?

11:11

RESI: It is the typical thing, a thing of careful what you wish for. Because on the one hand, we do see more locals reconquering spaces that they were driven away of, because there was nothing catering to them. On the other hand, obviously there's the whole economy behind that moves the city as well. And to come down to the city centre and see half of the shops empty is not what the locals wished for either.

11:23

Shuttered shops in old town

Music

11:45

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Resi takes me to a popular street in the old town, where 80 percent of bars and cafes are closed.

11:58

What are all these shops being closed going to mean for Barcelona’s culture and economy? Is it going to be able to recover?

RESI: Who knows? Let's hope so.

12:08

Music

12:18

Lily at Resi at Garriga’s Kitchen, greet Helena

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Resi used to finish her tours here at Garriga’s Kitchen, a modern Catalan restaurant that was thriving before COVID. But then came the first lockdown known as ‘confinamiento’. Helena Garriga has already closed one restaurant and is about to close her second.

HELENA: After the second confinamiento

12:27

Helena interview in restaurant

we decided not to re-open again, because it is just unviable, it’s almost impossible to reopen.

12:57

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  How difficult has that been for you and your family?

13:05

HELENA:  It was a tough decision to make. I had dreams, I thought it was going to be possible to make it again. But now, after seeing what everything is happening, I think it’s time for me to stop fighting and reconsider my business, and maybe go back to the origin, to this Mom & Pop shop, selling bread and wine and tomatoes.

13:09

Helena's closed restaurant

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  The Spanish government’s ‘Jobkeeper’ style scheme helped pay the wages of some of her employees, but she still had to let go of 20 staff. With customers disappearing, the debts have kept growing.

13:37

Helena interview in restaurant

What else has the government done to help small businesses like yours?

13:54

HELENA: Well, they’ve given us 1500 euros.

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  In total?

HELENA: Yes.

13:57

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  So were you disappointed by the lack of help from the government?

HELENA: Very. Very disappointing, it’s very disappointing, because it’s impossible. Many businesses like me are going to die. It’s impossible to survive.

14:04

Lily at home with Olivier as he cooks

Music

14:20

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  At home, Helena’s husband and former chef Olivier invites me to help prepare one of the restaurant’s specialties; Butifarra.

14:27

Lily: "With the skin? Oh wow!"

Olivier: "Yeah, that’s it."

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  The sharp downturn in the family’s income has meant that even a middle-class family has had to get help to pay school fees.

14:46

"What about the school community, has there been assistance from them at all?

OLIVIER: Yes. They have a fund. They told us the kids can still go to school. It's finishing in February, but at least we got a good amount of help for half the year.

15:02

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Going into the new year -- hopes and dreams in general? 

15:22

OLIVIER:  We lost all those big dreams of having 10 restaurants or 15 restaurants. Gone. Let’s take another route.

15:31

"And then usually we break the sausage, the white pork sausage on it, but we're going to separate it for the sake of you."

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  As a vegetarian, in Spain there are always awkward moments.

15:42

Lily and family at table

16:00

Flamenco performance

16:11

Lily at flamenco

I finish my evening taking in Spain’s most passionate dance. Nothing stirs the blood like flamenco. 

16:25

Performances like this are increasingly rare.  So many venues have closed that even the most famous dancers are out of work.

16:40

Karime dances

This is renowned flamenco artist Karime Amaya. Before COVID, she’d dance for seven hours a day, seven days a week. That life is now gone.

16:53

Karime films online class

17:25

"What have been the physical effects of not dancing on your body and on your mind?"

KARIME:  There are many effects. You gain weight, you put on kilos, because my body is used to a huge amount of activity.

17:33

Karime interview

The moment you stop everything falls apart. Knee pain, back pain. Everything's been brutal. Physically, the effect has been very bad.

17:56

Karime films online class

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Without the income from performances, Karime has struggled to survive. To earn money, she teaches dance classes online.

18:10

KARIME: Never before in my life have I had such a hard time. I’m young, I’m 35, but I’ll never forget this. It’s been so tough. And I have no savings because I've always lived with what I have.

18:26

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Like many flamenco artists, she’s found a way to channel her suffering into her work.

18:50

KARIME: Through dance we express all the sadness, the pain and the joy. It’s a form of therapy that helps us every day.

19:00

Christmas decorations. Madrid

Music

19:17

GFX: 2020 DECEMBER

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  As the holiday period begins, Christmas shoppers are out in force, but there’s a sense of uneasiness.

19:28

Snow covered Madrid

As if by magic, the new year brings something beautiful and unexpected. For the first time in half a century, Madrid is blanketed by heavy snow.  It’s a welcome break from unrelenting bad news, but as people enjoy it, social distancing is forgotten.

19:41

Lily to camera on snowy street

Across the country there is also a fair amount of anticipation at the moment -- daily case numbers are staggeringly high again, and doctors think there could be even more infections out there untested.

20:08

People in snowy park, kids play football

In fact, some are saying we're already in the third wave of the virus.[LM2]  I’ve heard through a friend that Elena, the young entrepreneur I met when I first arrived, has caught COVID.

20:19

Lily and Elena, computer interview

"How are you going?"

ELENA: Fine. Fine. Well, at home, obviously.

20:33

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  The last time we sat down and spoke you said you wouldn’t care if you got the virus?

20:40

ELENA:  There’s two ways of seeing this pandemic. It’s that you can go out and know that you’re going to get the infection once, it’s the most probable thing that can happen. Or staying at home all day. I chose the option of going out, spending time with my friends. So I knew it was probably that I am going to get the infection. If we don’t socialise, we are going to be really sad, and we are not going to have life.

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Elena tells me her friends from the café, Diego and Galit, would like to catch the virus.

20:45

ELENA:  They are both asking me if I am well, if I have symptoms, and if not, then I’m so lucky.

21:26

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  They want it?

ELENA: Yeah.

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  I don’t get, but why?

21:38

ELENA: Everyone my age wants to, because if you just go through this, it’s once, it’s rarely twice and then you can go out without fear, you’re not afraid of anything.

21:42

Ambulance

Music

22:02

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  It’s the second week in January and nearly 53,000 people are now dead – it’s a huge jump from when I arrived in October.

22:08

Lily into hospital hotel. Susana working

Dr Susana Pardo is now working out of a 4 Star hotel. With hospitals at capacity, hotels are unofficial wards for the milder cases.

22:17

Susana interview

SUSANA: We're not at the brink of collapse as we were before, but there's been a clear rise in cases.

22:35

Health workers receiving vaccination

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  There’s hope a national vaccination drive will lend some protection to frontline workers like Susana.

SUSANA: In my work we’re already 80 percent of the staff are already vaccinated.

22:45

Susana receives vaccination

We hope this will be the solution, or at least make a big impact.

22:56

Susana after vaccination

I've just had the vaccine. I feel great and I'm so happy.

23:10

Barcelona GV. GFX:
2021 FEBRUARY

Music

23:14

Lily visits Helena at restaurant

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  I return to Barcelona to check in on restaurateur Helena Garriga. I find her a changed woman. Although she hasn’t been able to re-open her restaurant, she’s launched a new business selling specialty food products, and it’s really taking off.

23:23

HELENA:  So we made cannelloni and we sold a hundred cannelloni last week. The orders just kept on coming.

23:48

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Do you feel a bit more in control of everything that's happening and the situation at the moment?

23:55

HELENA:  Well, certainly I feel like a light weight inside of me, because when I didn't know what was going to happen with our business, it's a heavy feeling. You feel like, "Oh my God, what's going to happen to my professional life".

24:00

And since December that I saw that it is possible to still be in business. So yes, I think that we'll manage to survive.

24:20

Helena serves customers

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Helena still has faith in her country.

24:37

HELENA: With the circumstances that we live in, in this terrible pandemic,

24:40

People on streets, Barcelona

where people are losing jobs and family members and just everything is going wrong, the Spaniards have inside of them, this amazing way of just moving on and enjoying the moment.

24:47

Volunteers providing food for artists

Music

25:04

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  The artistic community is also finding its way.

25:17

Music

25:21

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Triple A is an association that provides food for artists in need.

25:29

Lily greets Karime at Triple A

I meet up with Karime who’s volunteering with them. For her, the struggle continues. And unless flamenco venues re-open soon, she worries the artform won’t survive.

25:36

KARIME: Flamenco bars are where people can see the dance in its most pure, traditional form.

26:00

Karime interview

The big problem is whether these families and artists can continue what they’ve been working on their whole lives.

26:06

Karime collecting food supplies

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Could you ever imagine your life not dancing flamenco?

KARIME:  It’s part of my nature, I couldn’t imagine it.

26:19

Karime interview

Wherever, whenever, I’ll keep on dancing.

26:31

Madrid spring GVs

Music

26:34

Lily walks in park

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  Back in Madrid, spring is in the air. And for the first time in seven months, case numbers are dropping.

26:39

Susana greets Lily at apartment

Susana Pardo can finally see an end to the nightmare. But she’s not optimistic the government will improve conditions for junior doctors.

SUSANA: The government is dragging its feet, delaying deadlines. They are honestly wearing us down.

26:51

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  She’s so disillusioned she’s not sure she wants to continue working as a doctor.

27:17

SUSANA:  At work, I only think about the end of my shift and when I can go home,

27:24

Susana interview

and about finishing my residency, let's see what I'll do. I'm wondering if I should have chosen a different career, because I’m not happy with my job. The truth is I’d like to be in different position in life.

27:30

Street performers

27:58

LILY MAYERS, Reporter:  COVID has exhausted this country. And it’s not over yet. But here in Madrid, people are enjoying the moment when they can.

28:04

Food market. Lily shopping

The food markets are open, people come out to shop and socialise.  There’s such a strong need for connection and normality. I’ve always been inspired by the beauty here; now I’m in awe of the people –  their strength, their warmth and their endurance.

28:18

Credits [see below[]

Music

28:51

Outpoint

29:23