Of the 81 active cases of Covid-19 in Lanzarote this Monday, more than 37% were tourists or, to a lesser extent, university students studying outside the island who returned for the Easter holidays.
In total, between the days prior to that week and last Sunday, 30 positives were confirmed in people who do not live in Lanzarote, and the majority were French, English and German, according to information gathered by La Voz through health sources.
Many of these cases were detected in private laboratories, when these people went to have a PCR done to return to their country of origin. This makes it difficult to be sure whether these are "imported" cases or whether some of the infections occurred on the island, but everything points to the fact that the majority would correspond to the first option. This is because the disease takes a few days to manifest itself and also to be detected by the tests (which are also done up to 72 hours before the return trip, when the usual stay is six or seven days on the island).
As for the students, the same sources point out that there have been fewer cases, and they were diagnosed through the autocovid of the Molina Orosa Hospital installed in the Fairground. It should be remembered that people who come to the Canary Islands from other parts of Spain are also obliged to have a PCR or an antigen test, but they have the option of doing it on arrival on the island, keeping isolation until the results are obtained.
No outbreaks associated with these cases have been recorded
Regarding the consequences of these "imported" cases, the Health Department points out that there are no outbreaks associated with them. In fact, no outbreak has been reported in Lanzarote this week, which implies at least three linked infections. The only one reported this Wednesday by the Ministry, because more cases associated with it had been added, started more than 20 days ago.
Paradoxically, the fact that no outbreaks have been located has negatively influenced one of the indicators that are measured to monitor the evolution of the pandemic: traceability. This parameter, which evaluates the level of tracing based on the cases that are assigned to an outbreak - and therefore know its origin - has remained above 80% and even 90% in Lanzarote during almost the entire health crisis due to Covid-19. However, in recent days it has worsened, falling this Thursday to 59.65%, as it did during the past Christmas.
This would also indicate that most of these cases would be imported, because if the contagion did not occur on the island it is impossible to determine its origin for the trackers, and therefore lowers the traceability.
57% of cases, detected by tracking
Precisely this tracking work is what allows to detect most of the cases that are diagnosed on the island. According to the latest data provided to La Voz by the Health Department, almost 57% of the positives came from tests performed on close contacts of a positive, while only 25% were from people who went to get tested because they had symptoms.
The rest would arise from tests performed, for example, on the occasion of a trip, without prior indications of contagion. This is how most of the cases in tourists notified during Easter week and in the previous days were detected.
As for this week, the data suggest that cases detected in private laboratories, which would correspond to foreign tourists returning to their country, would have continued to be added.
This same Thursday, the website of the Ministry of Health details that on the previous day it performed 194 tests in Lanzarote and six tested positive, but however it has reported 11 new cases of Covid. And the same has happened on other days this week. Thus, the rest could come from private tests, which are notified to the Ministry and which are also added to the statistics.
