The Minister of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, Blas Trujillo, assured this Tuesday that an agreement with the central Executive to be able to carry out coronavirus tests on tourists, a "continuous claim" of the autonomous authority, is "close".
Trujillo stressed that other countries such as Czechia or Austria "have been putting in place measures" in this direction and remarked that for the Canary Islands they are a "necessary element" to add to the current measures.
"Therefore, with satisfaction, I want to inform you that after some recent meetings with the Ministry, we have reached, in principle, a methodology that has been sent by our autonomous community for evaluation," he explained.
Trujillo specified that he is "in an optimistic situation to see that there is a receptivity on the part of the Ministry" to these "approaches" and stressed that "it has not been achieved", but "at a point of being able to achieve it".
The counselor considered that a "big step" has been taken in the last meetings and, although he understood the concern shown by the PP during the parliamentary question, he asked the populars to be more careful with the vocabulary they use when referring to the situation in the Canary Islands, which "is neither serious nor very serious."
"Our situation is not very serious, they are almost 3 times worse than us in the United Kingdom," he said in reference to the controversy over the obligation imposed by the British Government to confine 14 days when returning from Spain.
The PP blames the "lack of credibility" of the Government of Spain
For his part, the PP deputy Miguel Ángel Ponce González considered that these measures, as well as others, arrive "late", and criticized that decisions such as that of the United Kingdom have to do with the "lack of credibility of our country."
He also asked to implement the total obligation to use masks and stressed that the tests should have been mandatory since the airports were opened. "Tests are not only important for tourists, but for the Canarians," he pointed out, to avoid what nobody wants: "to return to another confinement."