As August comes to an end, statistics from the Ministry of Health show that this summer there have been 11 times the number of deaths from Covid in the Canary Islands compare to last year after the state of alarm was lifted nd we entered the ‘new normal’. Since July 1st there have been 136 confirmed Covid related deaths, compared to 12 last year in July and August.
So far, there have been 100 deaths in August, the second highest month total since the pandemic began, and there were 36 in July. Last year, in July 2020, no Covid deaths were recorded while in the following month 12 deaths were registered. On the other hand, this year the Canary Islands entered summer at the height of the epidemic curve, especially in Tenerife, with almost 400 daily cases.
The graph showing deaths from Covid last year and so far in 2021, confirm that the incidence curves of mortality from Covid-19 don’t recognise seasons or particular months of the year like maybe other viruses do, such as flu.
To understand the difference between the figures, it must be said that, at the end of June 2020, the first phase of the state of alarm was ending, subject to stricter mobility regulations, after weeks of de-escalation once confinement was over. Therefore, there was much less social interaction at the time compared to now, which translated into a lower incidence of infections.
As meetings and social events resumed throughout July 2020, the coronavirus outbreaks began with an increase in cases in August. On July 1st 2020, the Canary Islands had accumulated 2,437 total cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, while by August 31st 2020, total cases amounted to 7,106 in the entire Archipelago.
As for this year, the Canary Islands were released from the curfew and perimeter closure orders due to the end of the state of alarm decreed by the central government. Then, on June 26th, the mandatory use of outdoor masks was lifted if interpersonal distance was guaranteed. Although the easing of the strictest measures of the pandemic, once the state of alarm ended and people were suffering from pandemic fatigue, led to new waves of infections, this summer has been especially hard for the Canary Islands due to the harmfulness of the Delta variant .
On July 1st, the Minister of Health of the Canary Islands, Blas Trujillo, reported that this strain had tripled in Tenerife and Gran Canaria in just one week. At the beginning of August, this mutation, which is 1,000 times more infectious than the original strain, became the predominant one in the Canary Islands, accounting for 80.5% of cases, above the national average of 77%. Furthermore, this variant is the only one that allows the vaccinated to spread the virus.
