Tenerife moves to Level 4 restrictions

Following a later than usual Governing Council meeting which started at 5.30pm chaired by the president of the Canary Islands Government, Angel Victor Torres, specifically to analyse the epidemiological data of the islands following New Year and Kings Day, the Minister of Health, Blas Trujillo, announced the changes to the alert levels in the islands in a press conference after the meeting.

Trujillo announced that due to the increase in cases and hospital pressure in Tenerife, the island is moving to Level 4, and Lanzarote and La Palma are moving to Level 3 from midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning.

This means that after the changes the islands are in the following alert levels:
Level 4: Tenerife
Level 3: Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma.
Level 2: La Gomera, El Hierro.
Level 1: None.

According to Trujillo, These modifications are due to the fact that in recent weeks there has been an increase of over 46% in the average daily cases of coronavirus in the Islands, so that the incidenCE of COVID place the Canary Islands in a situation of high risk, with positivity of 25.5% of the screening tests performed.

He also explained that there are notable differences between islands, the most worrying evolution being that of Tenerife, with positivity of 28% in tests and the occupancy of ICUs at 26% with Covid patients.

However, he clarified that the measures for each level will undergo a series of modifications thanks to the advance of the vaccination campaign. As a general rule, in level 4, which established capacities of 33% outdoors and 25% indoors, it will finally be 50% outdoors and 33% indoors. Likewise, the cultural activity will have a capacity of 55%. These modifications will be published with more precision in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) tomorrow morning.

COVID CERTIFICATE:
The Official Boletin of the Canary Islands published the extension for another month of the Health Order that regulates the implementation of the voluntary use of the COVID certificate this morning, which was passed by the TSJC on Wednesday.

This applies to islands in alert Level 1 or 2 and means that all sectors that are subject to capacity or closing time restrictions can use the Covid Certificate and take advantage of the capacities, group sizes, and closing time of the level below.

It should be remembered that the compulsory use of the Covid Certificate on the islands in levels 3 and 4 does not allow them to benefit from applying measures of the lower level.