Five Canary Islands now have incidence rates at ‘high risk’ for Covid

The seventh wave of Covid continues to escalate on the islands as the pandemic refuses to go away, and the pressure on hospitals is beginning to be felt by the SCS. In Gran Canaria, the percentage of occupancy of hospital beds by Covid patients is now at 10.06%, which is high risk, according to the latest epidemiological report published yesterday by the Public Health Committee.

Between July 1st and 5th, with consolidated data from July 4th, hospital admissions for coronavirus increased by 13.7%, going from 372 to 423, which is, 51 more people.

This means there has been an increase of 19.1% over the last week since Tuesday 28^th June. 22 Covid patients are currently critically ill in ICU and 401 are on Covid wards.

Gran Canaria is currently the island where the virus is rebounding the most, which is pushing up the incidence rates and they now stand at 815.44 over 7 days in the population over the age of 60, the only age group being actively monitored.

Five islands now have this indicator (IA7) in the red for high-risk:
Grana Canaria: 923.46
La Gomera: 826.7
El Hierro: 814.23
Lanzarote: 795.44
Tenerife: 761.03.

In addition, Gran Canaria also has a 14-day incidence rate at high risk with 1,679.99 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The Ministry of Health notified of another 1,951 new cases since Friday, and a further 10 people have lost their lives due to the virus, making a total of 1,831 since the pandemic began.

They are also experiencing outbreaks in social health centres and nursing homes, and according to the weekly report 119 elderly men and women were infected in residences on the islands in the last seven days, in addition to 46 residents in disability centres. The number of workers in both types of centres infected in the same period was 109.

Coronavirus in mainland Spain:
When monitoring the evolution of the pandemic, it is important to acknowledge the situation in Spain as a whole, as this is what leads to national restrictions, the situation of the Canary Islands is not taken individually.

The incidence of Covid once again comfortably exceeds a thousand cases and has returned to the levels of Covid infections in mid-February, driven by the sublineage of the omicron BA.5, which has a high transmission capacity (also in people who have recently had the disease).

The accumulated incidence in people over 60 years of age, is now 1,135 according to the report made public yesterday by the Ministry of Health. This figure represents 14% more than those reported last Friday, July 1st, and 35% more than the data released by the Ministry of Health just a week ago. In those over 80 years of age, the incidence is already close to 1,500 cases.

Hospitalizations have also increased in Spain, there are now 11,586 patients admitted with Covid, 1,337 more than last Friday, of which 502 are in the ICU. This data represents an occupation of 9.56% by Covid patients and 5.73% in intensive care, both of which have increased in the last four days.

Lastly, there have been 148 deaths since Friday, bringing the total number of deaths to 108,259 since the pandemic began.