Secretary for Organization of PSC

In November 2016, PSC's leader Miquel Iceta appointed him for the position of Secretary for Organization.^[10] Illa was the highest-rank politician from among the PSC cadres who attended the "Prou! Recuperem el seny" (English: Enough! Let's recover common sense) anti-independence demonstration in Barcelona on 8 October 2017 organized by Societat Civil Catalana.^[11]

He was part, along with Adriana Lastra and José Luis Ábalos, of the negotiating team of the PSOE that reached an agreement with ERC for their abstention in the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in January 2020.

Coronavirus pandemic

One of the first challenges faced by the minister was the outbreak of coronavirus in late 2019. Following the health crisis caused by COVID-19, various media reported that he temporarily moved to live at the Moncloa Palace.^[1]

In late January 2020, the Ministry of Health, in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started the process to repatriate around twenty Spaniards from China.^[15][16] On 29 January it was announced that they would be held in quarantine for 14 days in a military hospital in Madrid.^[17][18] In a joint operation with the government of the United Kingdom, they arrived to Spain on 31 January^[19] and they were discharged on 13 February.^[20] The first case of coronavirus in Spain was recorded on 31 January 2020 in the Canary Island of La Gomera. The patient, one of a group of five people was taken into observation after they had come into contact with a German man diagnosed with the virus.^[21] Since then, multiple cases were recorded. On 3 March 2020, the health authorities announced that a post-mortem test proved that the first coronavirus death in Spain occurred on 13 February 2020.^[22] That day, the health ministry suspended all medical conferences indefinitely to ensure the availability of all medical professionals^[23] and it recommended sports matches played against Italian teams be played without fans.^[24]

On 10 March, the central government, led by the Health Ministry, adopted more stringent measures. Among them were halting flights to Italy and banning large scale gatherings in Madrid, Basque Country, and La Rioja (regions with high risk of contagious).^[25] This measures were complemented with other ones taken by regional governments such as shut down schools by the regional governments of Madrid, the Basque Country^[26] and La Rioja,^[27] as well as the suspension of the Fallas by the Valencian government, after the recommendation of the Ministry of Health.^[28]

Throughout the pandemic, Illa appeared regularly at the Congressional Health Committee to report on the exceptional situation that Spain went through in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, amid criticism from the political opposition for the management of his department.^[29][30] In June 2020, he announced a National Preparedness and Response Plan for possible outbreaks.

In August, the minister carried out an important reform of the Ministry of Health, recovering the historic Secretariat of State for Health; he suppressed the General Secretariat for Health and created a new General Secretariat for Digital Health, all with the aim of improving the management of the pandemic by the Government and to achieve a more efficient and modern health system.^[31] In this sense, at the same time he announced that his department was going to develop a law to create a National Agency for Public Health.^[32] This objective was reflected in the general state budget for 2021 with an allocation of five million euros for the launch of the agency.^[33]

At the beginning of September 2020, Illa estimated that the vaccine could be ready and the vaccination campaign could begin at the end of December.^[34] Thus, in November 2020, the Minister of Health, together with the Secretary of State for Health, Silvia Calzón, presented the government's national vaccination strategy, which would begin at the end of December.^[35] On 21 December 2020, the European Medicines Agency approved the use of the first of the vaccines, the one developed by BioNTech and Pfizer.^[36] The first doses arrived in Spain and the rest of the member states of the European Union on 26 December^[37] and mass vaccination began a day later.^[38]

He resigned as minister of Health in January 2021 to focus on the Catalan regional election.^[39]