The president of the Tenerife Cabildo, Pedro Martín, said last night (Thursday), that in the face of the repeated disapproval by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) for additional measures, that the only tool they have left is to increase vaccination and police controls, as much as possible, to prevent gatherings, meetings, parties, and events that encourage interaction.
In statements to the media, prior to his meeting with the island's mayors and representatives of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS), Martín acknowledged that the decision of the Court to provisionally suspend the measure imposed by the Government. to require the covid certificate or some diagnostic test to access the interiors of bars restaurants was not expected, "It was a complete surprise to me," he confessed.
In his opinion, the Court's ruling puts us all in a “somewhat more complicated situation than it already was, to be able to establish controls with the island's population at a time when the number of cases is skyrocketing.”
“Probably”, he continued, "the only thing we have left, if mobility cannot be restricted at night, or if capacities in premises cannot be controlled through the Covid certificate, is to put the accent on increasing vaccinations as quickly as possible."
In this sense, he emphasized that the objective, before the end of the summer, should be to reach full vaccination in 70% of the target population but to try to surpass it and reach 80%, given the high transmissibility of the Delta variant. “70% will not be enough for normality due to the ease that the Delta variant spreads, we will need more,” he insisted.
Martín also reported that they have reached an agreement with the Government of the Canary Islands to extend the vaccination campaign in the Santiago Martín Pavilion in La Laguna until August 30th, which was initially scheduled to end this month, especially due to the worrying situation in Tenerife’s hospitals where there are 303 Covid patients hospitalized on the ward, and 47 in ICU.
“Hopefully people realise that due to the high number of Covid cases in Tenerife, other operations have been delayed, and in fact, only treatment for emergencies and cancer is maintained as no beds are available. This is why we want other measures and this is why we want people to act responsibly,“ he said.
Despite all this, 8,000 people have not attended their vaccination appointment. "It is a very high number, so we have to try to raise awareness so that the number of vaccinated people increases, because the problem is not the vaccines, there are vaccines available”, he concluded.
