The latest data from the Ministry of Health does not show a bend in the curve or a reduction in the spread of contagion of Covid-19 in the Canary Islands, with 505 new cases registered today. All of the islands are experiencing an increase, with Gran Canaria starting to see a rebound in cases and incidence rates.
Of the new cases, 259 are in Tenerife, however, this represents a smaller percentage than seen a couple of weeks ago at 51%, whereas before the island had 80% of the new infections. Today Gran Canaria has registered 191 new cases with their IA7 now at 116.77 and their IA14 at 173.46 as an upward trend is now being seen on the island. Fuerteventura has 18 new cases today while Lanzarote has 17, there are 16 in La Palma, 4 in La Gomera, and none in El Hierro.
The presence of the Delta variant has now increased to be in 33.2% of all new cases sequenced, compared to just 9.2% this time last week. This variant of the coronavirus is sweeping Europe as it has multiple mutations that appear to give it an advantage over other strains.
The most feared consequences of any variant of concern relate to infectiousness, the severity of disease, and immunity conferred by previous infection and vaccines. The WHO estimates Delta is 55% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which was itself around 50% more transmissible than the original Wuhan virus.
According to the Ministry of Health, the SCS has now administered 2,101,046 doses of the vaccine against Covid-19 of the 2,359,310 received, which represents 89.05% of those delivered to the islands. Up until yesterday, 927,997 people had been fully vaccinated, which represents 47.33% of the target population over 12 years of age in the Canary Islands. 86.7% of the 50-59 age group are now immunized and 45.4% of people between 30 and 39 years old have already had their first dose.
