The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has said today that he is confident that the “overwhelming” report sent to the Supreme Court will result in a favourable ruling for a curfew in the Islands with level 3 or 4, and hopes that they will have an answer later this week.
At a press conference earlier today, he revealed that he has spoken with other regional presidents who have presented similar proposals and are all "optimistic" in the face of the Supreme Court ruling.
He said he regretted that this appeal had to be presented after the order of the TSJC despite the "conclusive" report from the Prosecutor's Office, which is "a judgment of legality and also represents popular sentiment."
He stressed that the curfew is "one of the few tools" available at this time to stop infections and assured that it is "valid and works" because "it prevents gatherings at night, especially at weekends among the young population".
The president assured that he is not trying to "demonize" young people, but made it clear that at the moment they are the ones who are suffering the most infections, especially those under 20 years of age and even those under 10.
For this reason, he encouraged them to get vaccinated as quickly as possible and to collaborate with the trackers and give the names of their close contacts if they test positive for Covid-19, especially since there are vaccinated people who are entering hospital wards again.
In line with this, the Ministry of Health has left ‘open appointments’ for anyone over 18 in Tenerife and Gran Canaria to get vaccinated at any vaccination point on a first-come basis. This means that people born in 2003 or earlier will be able to get vaccinated from today by just turning up at one of the vaccination centres, or they can still via the miCitaPrevia app or on the website www.canariassevacuna.com.
Ahead of the next Governing Council meeting on Thursday and the ongoing saga of whether Tenerife will go up to level 4 or not, Torres admitted that there are measures in the alert levels that without a curfew “are less effective”. For this reason, it considers that it is necessary to look for other alternative measures, such as vaccination or screening.
He warned that there are two "difficult and complicated" weeks left to reach herd immunity in August and then "focus on future months, which are key for the Canary Islands."
