The island of Tenerife once again leads the worst figures in the transmission indicators of the coronavirus of the entire archipelago in the COVID Daily Situation Report prepared by the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands. He also leads, and by far, the daily infections of coronavirus, scoring even more than 1,000 cases in some of the last days.
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Thus, this Monday, with consolidated data from Sunday, the island shows that both the cumulative incidence (AI) at seven and 14 days and these two indicators in people over 65 are at very high risk, or extreme, that is, in brown color on the Health chart.
The seven-day AI is found in 639.56 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest figure in the archipelago and which means doubling the numbers of the other two islands with the most infections: Gran Canaria, with 248.85 cases (high risk) , and Fuerteventura, with 344.1 (also extreme or very high risk).
The 14-day AI is close to 800 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while Gran Canaria remains at 394.38 and Fuerteventura, at 651.45.
In people over 65 years of age, the data is equally worrying: AI at seven days in 157.68 cases, and at 14 days, in 261.93.
Positivity, which is the percentage of positive samples in diagnostic tests for active infection performed, is also at very high or extreme risk, with 16.14%.
These AI figures for Tenerife are the highest on the island in the entire pandemic. Not even last summer, when the archipelago broke all infection records, these numbers were reached. What’s more, the figures are so crazy that they are now almost double those harvested in July, when the maximum number of 325 cases was reached in seven days’ AI. Now it has passed 640, and rising.
The island’s contagion curve is no longer even a curve, but an ascending straight line, which is reminiscent of what happened in Lanzarote almost a year ago, in January 2021, when it began to experiment a very worrying increase in cases. The Government of the Canary Islands announced already in January that the island was going directly to health alert level 4, the most restrictive and created for the occasion, because the “curve had been transformed into a straight”, which has now been repeated with Tenerife, but, for now, the same prevention measures have not been taken and that, at the Just like then when the situation started to get worse, it is also on the threshold of Christmas.
The AI of Lanzarote at that time was not even as high as it is now in Tenerife, and the maximum number of infections was marked at 403 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Tenerife, as we have said, is already at 640.
Santa Cruz, the worst incidence on the entire island
The most affected municipality is Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has reported 2,203 positives in the last 14 days, 1,843 in the last week, and 223 this Sunday. La Laguna has registered 1,454 in the last two weeks, 1,248 in the last and 101 cases this Sunday.
These numbers place Santa Cruz as the municipality with the worst incidence in seven days of the entire island, with 881 cases; already 14 days, with 1,053.09. In both cases it is extreme risk. The AI at seven and 14 days in those over 65 years of age is 144.75 (extreme risk) and 239.59 (high risk), respectively. Positivity is close to 18%.
In La Laguna, the AI at seven and 14 days are also at extreme risk, 785.35 cases and 914.98, respectively. The AI at seven and 14 days in people over 65 years of age is 171.66 (worse data than Santa Cruz) and 221.26 7 (high risk), respectively. Positivity is close to 20%.
As has happened since the beginning of the pandemic, in Tenerife the cases are not exclusively concentrated in its metropolitan area, although it accounts for most of them. However, it can be seen, as in previous waves, that several municipalities also show indicators of extreme or high risk. Some even have them all in brown, such as Arona, El Rosario, Guía de Isora and Puerto de la Cruz.
A different scenario thanks to the vaccine
The difference is in the hospital pressure. Lanzarote presented the week that an occupancy of ICU beds by patients with COVID of more than 30% rose to level 4, extreme risk. In Tenerife, for now, it is not even at a high level, since ICU occupancy is 13% (medium risk) and hospital occupancy is 6.88% (medium risk). The ICU admission rate in the last seven days is very low, barely 0.86%, which means a “controlled situation”, according to the Daily Report.
Hence, in the face of a much higher increase in the number of infections, the island remains at alert level 3 and not at level 4.
This data is key and shows two very different scenarios compared to a year ago, since for now there is no collapse in hospital care, although the Deputy Minister of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, Antonio Olivera, said last Thursday after the Government Council In which it was agreed to raise Tenerife and Gran Canaria to alert level 3 that, with this rate of infections, in the coming weeks the pressure on hospital care would increase.
Despite this, with many more infections, the ICU admissions figures are much lower, which is due to the COVID-19 vaccine that, although it does not prevent infections 100%, does cause many fewer cases to end being serious and, in the worst case, the patient dies.
The head of Epidemiology of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) and president of the Spanish Vaccination Association, Amós García Rojas, declared this Monday to the Canary Islands Now that “the achievement” of these injections “is not that they prevent infection, but that prevent the disease from being serious. That is the key, if you are vaccinated, you will not die “or, at least,” you will have a lot of difficulties doing it, “he concluded.
In the Canary Islands, vaccination has been stagnant for several weeks around 85% of the target population (over 12 years old) and despite the fact that for a few days the COVID certificate has been required to enter some places and places of public attendance, the figure has not advanced. Now the Government is going to request that its request be mandatory for access, and not voluntary, as it has been up to now, with the hope of encouraging vaccination and reaching the goal of 90% of the immunized population.
