Ministry of Health recommend more use of masks and booster due to increase in Covid

The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, has asked for everyone to be “prudent” and has recommended the use of the mask due to the increase that is being registered in cases of coronavirus in Spain, including the Canary Islands, and has also called for anyone that has not yet had a booster dose of vaccine to have one as soon as possible, as they are still the best defence against serious illness.

She also confirmed, correctly this time, that the Ministry of Health is waiting for the Vaccine Committee to inform them when the fourth dose will start to be given to the general population over the age of 80, as they are waiting for new vaccines that protect against different variants of Covid to arrive.

1,881 new cases and 12 deaths in the last 3 days:
The Ministry of Health in the Canary Islands has reported that there have been 1,881 new cases of COVID-19 registered in the archipelago among people over 60 years of age, since Tuesday. This means that the 7-day incidence rate is now at 677.96 and the 14-day rate is at 1,233.36 as they continue to rise.

As confirmed yesterday, Gran Canaria is now at high-risk for Covid and the rest of the islands are expected to follow because cases are increasing at a rapid rate.

Currently, there are 372 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus, of which 17 are in ICU and the rest, 355, are on wards. Also, in the last three days, there have been 12 deaths from Covid, nine in Gran Canaria, and three in Tenerife.

SCS: ‘We need more nursing staff’
The SCS (Canary Islands Health Service) has asked the Regional Government today for more nursing staff in the face of “the brutal increase” in hospital admissions due to COVID in the Canary Islands, saying that the situation is “so complicated” that there are wards in which the double rooms have become triples to cater for the volume of admissions.

They have asked the Minister of Health in the Canaries, Blas Trujillo, for support because they are experiencing outbreaks of Covid in wards where there are no Covid patients. They are also concerned that it is too soon for mass events, such as dance music festivals and Carnivals, as pressure is mounting on hospitals.

The Canary Islands says ‘NO’ to more restrictions:
The spokesman for the Government of the Canary Islands, Julio Pérez, stated this morning that they don’t see the need to impose any additional measures to try to control the rise in Covid-19 infections that are being seen in recent weeks on the Islands.

Pérez said that, for the time being at least, " in the current situation", the indicators of care pressure "do not require the taking of new restrictive measures of containment or changes in alert levels.”

However, he stressed that “even though the data does not imply the need for new measures, we must pay attention and monitor the evolution of the pandemic, especially that related to hospital occupation and its impact on care services”.