Madrid will become the first European capital to go back into lockdown in coming days after the region's leader reluctantly agreed on Thursday to obey a central government order to ban non-essential travel to and from the Spanish capital, Reuters reports.

In order to fight a steep surge in Covid-19 cases, Madrid and nine nearby municipalities will see borders closed to outsiders for non-essential visits, with only travel for work, school, doctors' visits or shopping allowed. A curfew for bars and restaurants moved to 11pm from 1am.

However, regional chief Isabel Diaz Aysuo said she will appeal against the lockdown in the courts, meaning the uncertainty and fierce political squabbling that has exasperated the residents of Madrid is far from over.

“We are victims of improvisation,” architect Jean-Pierre Moncardo complained, saying politicians had wasted time fighting each other instead of giving medics the funding they needed to fight the pandemic.

The Madrid region has 859 cases per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation, making it Europe's worst Covid-19 hotspot. Spain already had one of the continent's highest infection rates during the first wave of the pandemic.