Covid update: ‘If cases in Tenerife don’t go down, hospitality interiors will have to close’

The president of the Association for the Defence of Public Health, Guillermo de la Barreda, has warned today that infections in Tenerife are worrying, and "If the curve does not go down, the interior of the hospitality industry will have to be closed again." He has also ruled out a drop in alert Level of the island in the short term, as Tenerife is now the island ‘holding back’ the Canaries reactivating tourism.

Despite the fact that the accumulated incidence rates (cases per 100,000 inhabitants) of coronavirus in the Canary Islands in the last 14 days is at 67.4, the lowest figure since August 2020, Tenerife continues to worry, which is why the island has remained at alert level 2. And, unlike what has happened in the rest of the Archipelago, the island continues to be the one that is adding the most new infections every day, and there have been three new deaths in the last week.

The president of the Association for the Defence of Public Health, Guillermo de la Barreda, said all this in an interview this afternoon on COPE radio, adding: “We still have groups drinking (botellons) on the beach of Las Teresitas. People are not respecting the rules as is necessary. And the worst thing is that on top of that, we have some politicians calling for an end to masks. It is clear that the authorities must thoroughly study the situation and monitor compliance with anti-Covid measures in social gatherings and in bars and restaurants. If the contagion curve does not drop, it will be necessary to limit the activity of the hospitality industry once again, closing interiors and restricting the diners outside to a maximum of four per table”.

In addition, he commented on the importance of the Canary Islands Government Health Department tracking and tracing new Covid-19 infections and outbreaks, saying “It is possible that this work is not being done effectively due to lack of means, but it is essential that it be done to tackle the pandemic in summer. We cannot relax, since the virus is still among us and we are far from reaching immunity of 70% of the vaccinated population," he concluded.