The Canaries doubles infections has ICUs on alert and 120 deaths since June

Covid continues to spread in the Canary Islands with increasing numbers of infections, more people hospitalized and in ICU, and losing their lives as a result of the virus. In the last three days since Tuesday, 13 more deaths have been reported (8 in Tenerife and 5 in Gran Canaria) and 1,899 new cases have been registered in the Archipelago in people over 60 years of age, as reported yesterday by the Ministry of Health.

In fact, the number of cases of COVID-19 in people over 60 years old has doubled in the Islands in the last month. With yesterday's 1,899, there have now been 17,053 new cases in those over 60 in the last four weeks (between June 18th and July 15th), which means an increase of 110% compared to the previous month, when 8,115 positives were detected between May 20th and June 18th).

This avalanche of new infections is now being noticed in hospitals. As of yesterday, 480 Covid patients are admitted to Canarian hospitals, which represents an increase of 4.5% in the last week, of which 31 are in ICU. Both these totals are the highest since the monitoring of the pandemic changed in March, and are extremely high taking into account its only one age group.

Not registering all infections, and only focusing on those in people over 60 years of age, means for many epidemiological experts, giving a false sense of normality that should not be disguised. The number of deaths continues to rise with 1,886 fatalities since the pandemic began, all people who have left grieving family and friends behind, Public Health points out.

120 DEAD SINCE 1ST JUNE:
In the last month, with data from June 14th to July 15th, 94 more people have died in the Archipelago from Covid-19, and if we increase the range from June 1st to yesterday, there have been 120 deaths. This "is not normality" according to experts. In comparison, in its worst season, the flu virus took the lives of 76 people in three months in the Canary Islands.

Some experts and health professionals have demanded that restrictions be enforced again due to the increase in infections registered in recent weeks in the islands, which is affecting hospitals that are already under pressure due to staff being off on holidays or sick leave.

The professor and honorary professor of Microbiology at the University of La Laguna (ULL), Ángel Gutiérrez, asked yesterday for the mandatory use of masks in closed spaces to be reintroduced, as it already is in hospitals and on public transport, to deal with the seventh wave of COVID.

He recalled that flu cases had also decreased in recent years thanks to the mask, and in recent months they have increased. "Make masks compulsory once and for all to cut off the transmission of the two infections," he demanded.

Gutiérrez stated that “we are living with the virus more for economic reasons than for health reasons because the country cannot afford another confinement like the one two years ago”. However, he states that in a strictly sanitary sense, "we should be confined."