The most Western point of Spain, the tranquil and beautiful island of El Hierro, has reported its first detected case of coronavirus. Five days after a nationwide State of Emergency was declared, a 61-year-old man, resident in the capital, Valverde, has been confirmed as carrying the COVID-19 infection. Since Thursday night, the patient, who happens to be the father of the Tourism Minister in the Cabildo de El Hierro insular government, Lucía Fuentes, has been isolated in the Nuestra Señora de Los Reyes Hospital, the smallest health center in the Archipelago.

The man has become the first infected with corona virus on the island having travelled several days earlier to Tenerife, where he had had contact with people at risk. He was in isolation at his home until last Tuesday when he realised he needed to go to the ER having recognised the combined symptoms of fever, cough and difficulty breathing. In addition, the man presented a series of previous underlying conditions. El Hierro was until this Friday, along with our tiniest island La Graciosa, one of the only places in the archipelago on which no confirmations of the virus yet been reported.