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A fisherman in Ayamonte, a town on Spain’s Atlantic coast.
Photographer: Marcelo del Pozo for Bloomberg Businessweek
Juan Manuel Caro Márquez used to spend his weekdays driving across southern Spain to his favorite fish supplier in the town of Ayamonte, where he would check out the day’s catch, place his bids at the auction, and then haul thousands of kilos of fresh seafood back to his hometown to sell to restaurants.
The stringent lockdown measures Spain instituted in mid-March to combat a surge in Covid-19 cases forced him to stop driving 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) each week to pick up and deliver the Atlantic Ocean shellfish. For the first time in his three decades as a fishmonger, Caro Márquez spends his mornings at home in the city of Málaga and uses the fish market’s revamped online auction to bid on shrimp and langoustines.