Gran Canaria should go to Level 2 today with Tenerife staying in Level 3

Since August 30th, Gran Canaria has maintained all its epidemic indicators in the parameters required by Level 2, which is both incidence rates of infections over seven and 14 days in the general population and in those over 65 years of age, as well as those relating to pressure on hospitals. This should lead the Canary Islands Government to lower the health alert level on the island today, which would go down from 3 to 2.

If this happens it would mean a notable relaxation in the restrictions under the new decree-law of anti-coronavirus measures that sets a maximum of eight people in meetings at Level 2 and extends closing times to 2.00am, among other changes.

However, in the case of Tenerife, although all its indicators of virus transmission are in the limits for Level 2, the percentage of occupancy of ICU beds is still marked in red, with 22% of them allocated to Covid patients. Also, it is important to remember that all through the pandemic a change of level is for at least 15 days, and Tenerife only moved to Level 3 last week.

In the third island in level 3, Fuerteventura, infections are actually on the rise and its incidence rate over seven days moved to high-risk yesterday, with 75 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, so there will be no change there.

The parameters remain stable on all the islands at Level 1, which are Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, although in the latter the five infections registered in the last seven days have placed the incidence in people over 65 at extreme risk.

Yesterday the Ministry of Health notified of the death of two men with coronavirus, one of 50 years old in Tenerife and the other aged 66 in La Palma.

In the last seven days, there have been 131 outbreaks in the Canaries with 613 associated cases, according to Ministry of Health data. Of these, 69 were detected in Gran Canaria; 45 in Tenerife; 11 in Fuerteventura; 3 in Lanzarote; one in La Gomera and one in El Hierro. The largest of the outbreaks this week was a family one with 17 affected in the town of El Medano in Granadilla de Abona in south Tenerife. Most were family outbreaks (55), followed by social ones, with 34.