The Santa Cruz City Council has confirmed that the Carnival will now take place in June due to the current sixth wave of COVID, believing that by then the whole situation of the pandemic will have improved. The mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, informed the groups that organise and participate in the event yesterday of the decision to move the festival, in a Zoom meeting in which there were 103 people connected.
Bermúdez informed that the Carnival will now take place between June 4th and 26th, and explained that this decision has been made in light of the current level of contagion that is causing the sixth wave of COVID and the current restrictions in Level 4 which prevent rehearsals or the assembly of the stage, which should have started this week.
“We started planning the Carnival more than two months ago, when the omicron variant was not on the radar, and in this time, like everyone else, we have seen the changes and the inability to make any advance plans or decisions,” he said.
With the arrival of the sixth wave of COVID, Bermudez explained that they have had to make decisions that guarantee the safety of people, while also being able to celebrate an event in which more than 9,000 people are involved.
“At the moment, the data has taken us to level 4 restrictions and the forecast of the Canary Islands Government is that Tenerife will continue at this level until at least the end of the month. That makes going back to rehearsals practically impossible, and, even if it were lowered to level 3, it would still be very difficult to maintain the group meetings”, he continued.
Bermudez continued by saying that ultimately the council’s decision was ‘June or nothing’ to save the Carnival, and reiterated that they would still rather stage a condensed version of the festival with restrictions in place than cancel it and that there are no other dates possible outside of June as otherwise, it goes into summer, and it can’t take place afterwards. The groups and organisers have welcomed the new dates and planning will resume the galas and contests.
