The British Government has decided to remove the Canary Islands from the list of places with which it has "safe corridors" in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, so that those returning to the United Kingdom from the archipelago from 4 a.m. on Saturday, December 12, will have to quarantine.
This was announced on Twitter by the British Secretary of Transport, Grant Shapps, in a message in which he justifies the decision by the "increase in weekly cases and positive tests." The United Kingdom had included the Canary Islands on this list of safe places on October 22, after the archipelago managed to reduce its accumulated incidence.
According to figures released this Wednesday, the Canary Islands have an accumulated incidence of 93.48 diagnosed cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days and 52.15 in the last seven days. That barrier of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days is what the United Kingdom has set to draw a red line, and the archipelago has exceeded it again due to the increase in cases in Tenerife. In fact, in reality that is the only island that is above that average.
The other parameter that has worsened in the archipelago as a whole is the positivity rate, that is, the percentage of tests that are positive out of the total number performed. The World Health Organization recommends that it not exceed 5% - which would imply doing more tests for each case detected - and in recent days the archipelago has exceeded that limit. On the last day, positivity stood at 7.79%.