The COVID-19 pandemic effects in rural areas: Cantabria (Spain) as a case study

The purpose of this research work is to make a geographical contribution to the understanding of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in different territorial contexts from a multi-scalar perspective. Specifically, it is about helping to answer the question: what consequences has the pandemic had and could have in the future on the economy and the population, their constituent elements and structures in rural areas? The results obtained show that the way in which COVID-19 has affected the rural areas of Cantabria has been very similar to the way in which the impact has been produced in the whole of Spain, for which reason most of the conclusions obtained can be extrapolated to other territorial areas. The analysis of the behavior of the pandemic from the spatio-temporal point of view reveals the existence of intraregional contrasts, which are a consequence of the pre-existing imbalances between the central and littoral area, more urbanized, and the peripheral rural areas, characterized by a more dispersed settlement structure that has become an element capable of moderating the spread of the virus, despite being the areas with the highest rates of aging. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the exceptional features of the dynamics observed during 2020, defined by numerous singularities that could have substantially modified, even adulterated, the traditional conditioning factors of socioeconomic dynamics, that do not seem to have had continuity until now but a punctual character.