The Canary Islands has doubled its vaccination rate in less than a week

3/3/21, 9:42 AM By Canarian Weekly National

The Canary Islands Health Service have managed to double the rate of vaccination, inoculating twice as many people on a daily basis than just a week ago. Some of the coronavirus vaccines are being administered at an average rate of 4,000 per day in the Islands, compared to the 2,000 in mid-February, as confirmed in the reports of the Ministry of Health.

Three main factors have contributed towards the increase:
- SUPPLY: More vaccines are starting to arrive in Spain, which means more for the Canary Islands, which is governed by the EU. The arrival of the AstraZeneca vaccine has helped increase the rate because it can only be administered to people under the age of 55, so the SCS have started on new groups of front-line workers under 55. So far the Canary Islands have received a total of 37,100 doses.

- EASE: Both the Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are easier to store than Pfizer, so they are easier to transport and administer. But the main factor contributing to ease, is now that the residents of nursing homes and socio health centres have been inoculated, people are going to be vaccinated, rather than vaccines being taken to people, which speeds up the whole process and allows more volume.

- TRAINING: The SCS are training extra staff to administer the vaccine, and every day more people are starting to be in the inoculation teams. This training is on-going and more staff will be available every day and every week during the vaccination plan.

The Ministry of Health is planning to start mass vaccination in Spain and the islands in April, as the supply of the vaccines is scheduled to increase dramatically, and there will be a volume of trained people available to administer them. Currently the Health Service is negotiating with regions to activate mass vaccination centres so that they can meet their target of 70% of the population vaccinated by the end of June.

The trends in epidemiological data:
Yesterday the Ministry of Health of the Canary Islands registered 115 new cases of coronavirus, of which, Tenerife and Gran Canaria added 51 and 53 new positives, respectively. These increases denote that the sustained growth of the epidemic curve in Tenerife is maintained, while its strength is relatively reduced in Gran Canaria.

Tenerife has accumulated 460 new cases in the last week, which is 16.7% more than the previous one; a slight increase compared to previous days. Regarding Gran Canaria, these last seven days have added 500 cases, which represents an increase of 10.8% compared to the previous week. In turn, it represents a decrease with respect to the increase that had been reported in recent days.

Regarding the rest of the islands, the case of Fuerteventura stands out, which added 10 new cases yesterday. La Palma, meanwhile, registered a new one. El Hierro and La Gomera remain without adding new cases and Lanzarote, for the first time in more than two months, did not add a new case to its statistics.