The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, insisted today, Thursday, March 12, that the order of the Minister of Health of the Autonomous Government, Teresa Cruz, signed yesterday, Wednesday 11, establishes with complete clarity and legal legitimacy that on the islands all sporting, cultural and social events, both in bounded and unbounded spaces, involving crowds of people over 1,000 are banned or suspended and also stressed that this measure to protect public health, is being applied urgently to avoid The spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Autonomous Community and so is, therefore, mandatory for all public administrations and any private entity.

Apart from these considerations, which the head of the Canarian Executive wanted to make clear today, Torres announced that this same day a complementary Health order will be signed so that acts with the presence of less than 1,000 people, in limited or unbounded spaces, also may be prohibited or suspended by local administrations on condition that they are communicated to the Canary Islands Government. This measure reinforces those already adopted according to the order of the Minister of Health issued on March 11, 2020.

This new measure responds to the need for municipalities and councils, within their powers in the preservation of public health, to act to benefit the containment of possible infections by COVID-19.

Along with these two issues, the President of the Canary Islands confirmed the measures adopted yesterday to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Islands, among which the following are very important:

  • Suspension of school trips outside the Canary Islands for two months.
  • Symptom monitoring for 14 days for students from other autonomous communities or from Erasmus programs in countries with risk areas.
  • Restriction of visits to hospitals.
  • Suspension of activity in clubs and social centers for the elderly for 14 days.
  • Restriction of visits to nursing homes and social health centers.
  • COVID-19 information lines
    As is known, the Ministry of Health maintains a toll-free telephone line (900 112 061) from which a Nursing team, under the coordination of the Canary Emergency Service (SUC), attends to requests for information from citizens on measures of prevention, possibilities of contagion and false concepts related to the coronavirus COVID-19.

In addition, the Ministry of Health reminds everyone of the importance of anyone who considers that they may have symptoms related to the coronavirus (cough, sore throat, fever and feeling of shortness of breath), or have returned in the last 14 days from any of the risk areas or have any relation to someone who comes from these points, contact the 1-1-2 service, in order to avoid going directly to the Primary Care centres or hospital emergencies facilities. Through this route, the extraction of samples will be managed in the home, if it is medically necessary. In any case, the population is asked to use this health resource rationally and only when the aforementioned conditions are me