The Governing Council of the Canary Islands has agreed today go up to the island of La Gomera to alert level 2 epidemiological by coronavirus due to the evolution of the pandemic on that island. In the case of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the islands with the highest number of cases, especially the first, remain at level 3, announced the Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo. Fuerteventura will also continue at level 3. Lanzarote and La Graciosa remain at 1, as do El Hierro, and La Palma, at 2.
On the other hand, The flexibilization of schedules is suspended at the closure of nightlife and restaurant venues that had been approved for these Christmas dates and the contents of the decree law are recovered due to the exponential growth of cases in the Archipelago due to the omicron variant.
In this way, the establishments located on the islands at level 1 may be open until three in the morning; on level two until 2.00 am; and in levels 3 and 4 until 1:00 am, Trujillo recalled. This measure, which does not need ratification by the Higher Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC), will enter into force tonight after the publication of the same scheduled throughout this afternoon in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC).
Trujillo has clarified that the possibility remains in force for locals that require the covid certificate from their clients, they will be able to adapt their closure to the schedule established on the level immediately below the island at that time.
The regional Executive will monitor the evolution of the pandemic in the coming holidays and, if necessary, will convene an extraordinary Governing Council to adopt new measures.
In the last week there has been a 186% increase in new coronavirus cases in relation to the previous week due to the rapid expansion of the omicron variant, said Trujillo. As a result of this increase, the percentage of PCR tests with a positive result has gone from just over 6% of the total performed, to 14%.
The Government of the Canary Islands had studied close nightlife and request judicial authorization to implement a curfew faced with the exponential increase in COVID-19 casesSince only between Tuesday and Wednesday 2,669 new infections were reported in the Islands, the highest daily number recorded since the pandemic began. However, the Canary Islands will not apply that measure for now, which will return to Catalonia after the Superior Court of Justice of that autonomous community approved this Thursday the Government’s request to implement a curfew between 1.00 and 6.00 hours from 24 December and for at least fifteen days.
In an interview with ‘COPE Canarias’, collected by Europa Press, the director of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS), Conrado Dominguez, hinted that in the government council that was held today, it was possible that it was decided to raise the island of Tenerife to health alert level 4, taking into account that every day it is accumulating the highest percentage of infections in the Islands due to the expansion of the omicron variant. However, this has not been the case and it will continue in 3.
Hospital occupation
In turn, Trujillo indicated that there has been a rise in the occupancy of hospital beds in the ward and in ICUs in the Archipelago 13% and 9.5%, respectively. However, he specified that “these indicators still place us in a situation that it is not of the maximum risk in the whole of the islands, where we are at the medium risk level down, although there is an overload in some of them. “In any case, he asked to adopt” the utmost caution because if the increase in cases continues with this exponential growth, sooner or later there will be a higher occupancy of hospital beds “.
The age of those hospitalized with covid in the ward is around 67 years and 66 in the case of critics, according to Trujillo. Almost 60% of those admitted to the ICU in the last month had not received the complete vaccination schedule.
Do you agree that the use of the mask is once again mandatory outdoors?
You can see the press conference offered this afternoon by the Government spokesman, Julio Cruz, and the Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo, at the following link:
Regarding the data of coronavirus in the Canary Islands, Tenerife has a Accumulated Incidence at 14 days that reaches 1,104.56 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants and an ICU occupation by patients with the virus around 16%, a situation that worries within the Government.
“With the numbers in hand, we are on our way to having to decree level 4”, he warned Conrado Dominguez. “Today we will have a meeting when all the data are consolidated and a proposal will be made to the Governing Council to review, in any case, the most restrictive measures, but with these data we are quite close,” he said.
The director of the SCS has advanced the possibility of requesting the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) the curfew to “limit some movements in certain hours to try to cut that part of socialization that is not done in a responsible way”; a measure that was put on the table at the Conference of Presidents held yesterday.
With respect to nightlife, Conrado Domínguez has indicated that it is one of the sectors where more outbreaks of COVID-19 are being detected. At the moment there are more than ten notified, including the one that originated in a discotheque in Adeje, the largest since the pandemic began, with at least 273 positives.
Therefore, the SCS director indicated that the possible closure of nightlife It is also “one of the issues that are on the table and that is being assessed in order to take measures, but not only in the Canary Islands, but also at the level of the State.” Despite this, he stressed that “it is not a problem of an activity, but an individual problem.”
He stressed that the fact that most of the infections are occurring among those under 50 years of age helps that hospitals are not subjected to such a care burden, although he recalled that an exponential increase in cases with many close contacts “makes everything is stressed, both the tracking system and primary care and hospitals, but the system is responding. ”
Regarding the decision to restore the mandatory use of the mask outdoors, the director of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS) He stressed that it is one more measure to try to avoid infections, but he wanted to make it clear that this “only stops with individual responsibility and complying with the rules”, since most of the infections are being registered in closed areas, meetings family and nightlife.
On the other hand, Domínguez has also advanced that, “today”, He does not see feasible that the Canarian football derby between CD Tenerife and UD Las Palmas will be held on January 2 with 100% of the capacity in the Heliodoro Rodríguez López, although the Autonomous Community can only say within its powers.
