The festival of San Fermín, which for centuries has unleashed half-tonne fighting bulls into the narrow streets of Pamplona, has been suspended indefinitely as Spain battles one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of Covid-19.

“As expected as it was, it still leaves us deeply sad,” said Ana Elizalde, the acting mayor of Pamplona. “As of today, it seems unlikely that the festival will be celebrated this year, but let’s wait and see how the events evolve.”

Spain has recorded more than 21,000 deaths from coronavirus and more than 200,000 confirmed cases of infection. In the northern region of Navarra, which includes Pamplona, more than 350 people have been killed by the virus.

“In this context, there’s no place for fireworks, bullfights or bull runs,” said Elizalde.

The fiesta, long a target for animal rights activists, has been called off only a handful of times in the past century, for reasons such as civil war or other political unrest. It typically draws around a million visitors for nine days of alcohol-fuelled partying.

“It seems our beloved fiesta is at odds with the coronavirus,” Elizalde said. “We’re supposed to wear masks, keep a social distance – measures that are incompatible with what San Fermín is.”

It’s a calculation that is playing out across the country as officials attempt to maintain physical distancing. Adding to the pressure is the outsized role that tourism plays in the Spanish economy: more than 83 million people visited Spain last year, accounting for nearly 12% of the country’s GDP.

In the small town of Buñol, near Valencia, the mayor and town councillors will meet on Monday to debate what lies ahead for the world’s largest food fight. Held each year in August, the Tomatina usually crams 20,000 people into the town to pelt each other with thousands of ripe tomatoes.

In the heart of the Rioja wine region – where the coronavirus outbreak has taken a particularly deadly toll – June usually heralds Haro’s wine battle, in which participants drench each other in 70,000 litres of red wine.

The rapidly changing situation in Spain has left little room for concrete estimates on when tourism might return to normal. “Our country will not start tourist activity until it is extraordinarily safe, both for those who live in Spain and who come to visit,” the government spokesperson María Jesús Montero said last week.

The government imposed strict lockdown measures in mid-March, and closed land borders to all but Spanish citizens and residents soon after.

The labour minister, Yolanda Díaz, recently suggested the tourism, culture and leisure sectors would not restart until after the summer and could expect to face “enormous difficulty”.

The tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, hinted that jam-packed festivals, beaches and plazas would not be seen anytime soon. “Until there is a vaccine, nothing will be the way it was before. Gatherings will have to be limited to maintain safe distances,” she told the newspaper El País.

“It is very important that we continue to follow health recommendations,” she added. “We have to keep up what we are doing now; washing our hands, keeping social distance … even on the beach.”