The Government of the Canary Islands have said that they will make group sizes more flexible for family gatherings during the Christmas, New Year's and Three Kings meals, with an increase from 6 to 10 people in Level 3 (Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura).
The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres said today, Friday, that 10 people will be allowed on five specific days, as it was a year ago, i.e. December 24th, 25th and 31st, and January 1st and 6th.
However, Torres has once again asked for all citizens to act responsibly and respect the restrictions, because people’s livelihoods are at stake. He stressed, "the health of the people and the economy of the Canary Islands is in the balance since the sixth wave has come along. We are witnessing unprecedented numbers of infections and only collectively can we conquer it.
"We are not going to allow parties in breach of the rules," he said. "We cannot be that we have images and videos of places where with people without masks, with people not complying with the regulations, with people in crowds, and we will fine those people with the maximum possible sanctions," he added.
Torres added that, at the moment, the pressure on hospital beds and ICUs is at a lower level than in the summer, when there were fewer infections, due to the effect of the vaccine. "But we cannot afford to lower our guard, far from it."
The President also applauded the way in which the families are responding to the call to vaccinate children between 5 and 11 years old and added that he, who has a son of that age, is also going to have him vaccinated.
He concluded by saying “We are going to overcome this pandemic, but I ask that we act in accordance with the restrictions because we risk our health and our economy. We depend on tourism and we have already had some setbacks, such as the restrictions taken by other countries or the situation of those countries, but we also have data now in the Canary Islands that we have to turn around ourselves”.
