There will be no new home confinement to combat the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic says Spain's health minister Salvador Illa.

He said the central government doesn’t even consider a new state of alarm that empowers regions to lock up their citizens at home.

"It is not even in our minds," said the Minister of Health, who is convinced that the current powers (approved on 25 October and in place until 9 May) are enough to stop the new onslaught of the virus.

Despite acknowledging that the current epidemiological situation causes "a lot of concern" and that the government "does not hide" that "complicated weeks are coming", he insisted that the autonomous regions already have at their disposal a "sufficient range of measures" to try to tackle the situation.

The current measures give powers to the regions, such as the perimeter closure of municipalities, the imposition of curfews, in addition to the closure of shops and hospitality business and capacity reduction controls.

Since the end of the pandemic’s first state of alarm on 20 June 2020, the government of Pedro Sánchez has been reluctant to lock the population down at home.

Despite pressure from epidemiological experts the government insists that a new total confinement would cause damage to the economy even worse than the one that caused by the lockdown last spring.

Illa's announcement that the government did not even consider home confinement happened at almost at the same time that a CIS survey was published claiming that 60 per cent of Spaniards believe that both the central and regional goverments should have taken more drastic measures to contain the pandemic.

Only 25 per cent of those polled consider the measures implemented so far by the administrations as "adequate".