The Covid after the vaccines: of 74,093 immunized people on the island, 45 have been infected having the two doses

​The head of trackers answers the main questions about the current situation of the pandemic in Lanzarote: the new delta strain, the infections in the hotel industry or why there is so much difference in the cases reported from one day to another

July 7 2021 (20:33 WEST)
Baltasar Gomez, head of the Covid tracking team of Lanzarote
Baltasar Gomez, head of the Covid tracking team of Lanzarote

Vaccines have transformed the impact and consequences of the pandemic, but the danger has not passed. This is what the head of the Lanzarote tracking team, Baltasar Gómez, warns, who continues to ask the population for prudence. La Voz analyzes with him the main doubts about the current situation on the island, including the cases that are occurring in people who had already received the two doses of the vaccine -45 so far-, the new Delta variant, the reality about infections in sectors such as the hotel industry and why there is so much difference between the number of cases reported from one day to another in Lanzarote.

 

Are infections occurring among vaccinated people?

Since vaccination against Covid-19 began, 45 positives have already been detected in Lanzarote of people who had received the two doses. "If you compare it with the people who are vaccinated, it is not so much," says Baltasar Gómez. And it is that until this Tuesday, 74,093 people on the island already had the complete pattern, so the number of infected represents 0.06% of the total.

"The vaccine serves for what it serves, and what it will prevent is that you do not develop a symptomatology that is as important as to motivate an admission or an entry into the ICU, as happened before," emphasizes the head of the tracking team.

In fact, he points out that this is the case in the vast majority: "In the cases that have occurred of people who had already received the two doses of the vaccine, they do not develop symptomatology or it is very mild."

However, he also recalls that this should not lead to lowering the guard. "You have to be very prudent. There is coronavirus left for a while. And be very careful the unvaccinated population, because due to the new strains that are circulating, and that we already have some in the islands, the consequences can be important if that population takes the matter lightly and thinks that we are already out of the pandemic, because we are not," he warns.

 

Exceptions of patients with more serious symptoms despite the vaccine

Although in general vaccinated people who have contracted Covid have passed it almost without symptoms, there are some exceptions in which hospital admissions have occurred. "Only three, four cases, and in one of them the symptoms were due to the underlying disease, not the coronavirus," explains Baltasar Gómez.

Regarding the others, he points out that when they worsened "a little" they were admitted to keep them under observation, although all ended up being discharged. In fact, not a single death has been recorded in Lanzarote among vaccinated people, although there have been at least two cases in other islands.

However, Gómez insists that the percentage of Covid cases among vaccinated people, and even more so the percentage of cases with severe symptoms, is "very low."

 

Why is there so much difference in the daily cases from one day to another?

One of the things that is most disconcerting in the daily monitoring of the pandemic is the difference in the number of daily cases that are reported by the Ministry of Health. For example, last Saturday 13 cases were reported in Lanzarote, on Monday none -something that had not happened for months-, and on Tuesday it rose again to 10. In this regard, Baltasar Gómez explains that those 'peaks' that seem to exist on some days are not such, and that many times the explanation is that cases that for some reason had not been counted the day before are added to the statistics.

In the case of last Monday, he directly points out that it was "a mistake" that zero that the Ministry reported. And he explains that in reality on that day his team had to track six cases, and during the night another three were added. 

Precisely, sometimes the difference may also be in the cut-off time that is used to update the statistics. "It is not easy," clarifies Gómez, who points out that one thing is the work in the laboratory, which continues during the night, and another is the transfer of data to official reports. "And there may also be cases from private centers that have not notified us electronically and they have not yet computed them," he adds. However, he stresses that "what is not added one day is added another," which is precisely what can generate those differences from one day to the next. "The important thing is that in the last two weeks we are in a daily average of between four and eight cases. Sometimes it goes up a little more, but in general we are having less than ten daily cases in Lanzarote."

 

'Imported' cases have increased again with the holidays

Of the active cases that Lanzarote currently has, just over 21% are "imported." The majority corresponds to students who have returned to the island at the end of the course, others to residents who had traveled abroad and tested positive when returning to the island and, the least, to tourists. "In recent weeks, there are few foreign tourists who have brought us the coronavirus," says Gómez.

This increase in imported cases has occurred in each holiday period and has been repeated again now, although so far to a lesser extent. Last Easter, the figure reached 37% of the total cases that existed at that time on the island, and the majority were students. Ten days after that holiday period, the percentage had already dropped to 12%, but it has increased again with the arrival of summer.

 

Why has traceability dropped again?

The indicator that measures the tracking work is traceability, which is the percentage of cases that are associated with an outbreak and therefore determine its origin. In Lanzarote, during most of the pandemic, traceability has exceeded 80 and even 90%, but now it has fallen again and was at 61% this Tuesday. However, Baltasar Gómez points out that the explanation lies precisely in that increase in imported cases, as already happened during the past Christmas and Easter. "If we take into account that 21% of the cases are from tourists or residents who come from abroad, if they come infected, if they were infected in Aragon or Valencia, we cannot do the traceability there, because it is impossible to track. That is done by the autonomous community where it has occurred," he clarifies.

In those cases, his work focuses not on determining the origin of the infection, but on the possible infections that it may have generated afterwards within the island. "If a student comes who has to be in isolation until the test is done and maybe skips that measure because he feels good, he is asymptomatic, and greets the whole family and goes to a barbecue with all the friends, because he has not seen them for three months; if he tests positive there, imagine how many people he could have infected," he warns.

 

Has the delta or Indian variant arrived in Lanzarote?

Last week, the Minister of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands warned of the advance of the delta variant (initially known as the Indian variant) on the island of Gran Canaria and especially on that of Tenerife, where it already represented almost 10% of the cases analyzed. However, Baltasar Gómez affirms that so far no case of this strain has been detected in Lanzarote, which is more contagious and could also be more virulent.

However, at any time it could be confirmed that it has arrived on the island, given the presence it is already having in the Canary Islands and throughout Spain.

To know which variant a case of coronavirus corresponds to, it is necessary to do an additional test (sequencing), which is done only with a part of the samples from each island, which is determined by Public Health. For months, the most widespread variant in all the Canary Islands has been the British one, which in itself is also more contagious, although it is feared that the delta will continue to grow now, which generates even more concern.

 

New patients, increasingly younger

Regarding the age group that is being most affected now, Baltasar Gómez confirms that the trend in Lanzarote is the same as is being experienced throughout the Canary Islands and throughout Spain: patients are increasingly younger, since it is the population that is not yet vaccinated.

"The highest percentage of cases we are having is of people under 45 years of age, and now there is a rebound of an even younger population, below 35," he specifies. In fact, he points out that they are increasingly seeing more students around 20 years old who test positive.

 

Many positives are detected in private laboratories

"From private laboratories, it is rare the day that they do not provide us with one, two, three cases..." explains the head of trackers. Regarding the people who opt for these private centers to take the tests, he explains that there are tourists who must take a PCR or an antigen test to return to their country, but they are not the only ones who use that service.

There are also residents who need a test to travel, or people who do not have Social Security or have private insurance and do not go to the Canarian Health Service. When a positive is detected in these private laboratories, it must be communicated to the authorities and the protocol is activated as in any other case, among other things initiating the tracking work from the Molina Orosa Hospital.

 

Do patients lie to trackers?

To try to increase citizen awareness, the Ministry of Health is making public more and more cases of people who "lie" to trackers: who do not keep in isolation after having tested positive or who hide the close contacts they have had. "That is our day to day," says also the head of trackers of Lanzarote. "Of the few cases we are having, every day there is someone who resists naming third parties, due to the impact it may have on them, or because of what it means at a labor level to comply with the quarantine. That has always happened and continues to happen," he says. In fact, that has been from the beginning the great challenge of the trackers, who not only make calls, but also use other channels, including going to social networks, within that work of 'investigation' to detect any possible contagion.

"We are not police, as I always say, what we want is to cut the chain of transmission and do the tests that are necessary for it," remarks Baltasar Gómez. 

However, he adds that "the majority" of people collaborate with the trackers. "In some cases it is not so, but 80 or 85% do it very well and help us a lot."

 

In what area do infections occur? Is the hotel industry a risk factor?

The head of trackers is blunt: "Most of the infections continue to occur in Lanzarote in the family and social sphere, and in some cases it is then taken to the labor sphere." Regarding the hotel industry, which has been the subject of extensive debate, especially after Tenerife's rise to level 3, Baltasar Gómez affirms that in Lanzarote there has been "very little incidence in that area."

In fact, he points out that they do not even have "knowledge" of an outbreak in a hotel that was notified last week by the Ministry of Health with six associated cases. "There may be two cases in a hotel complex and the rest are family and social, but only a labor outbreak, never," he stresses.

In this regard, he specifies that in the last fifteen days they have not detected more than two cases either inside a hotel or inside a restaurant, and an outbreak is declared from three positives.

Thus, although months ago there was some specific outbreak in some establishment, he insists that the main danger is occurring "in birthday celebrations of 20 people in which a positive can infect three or four or in meetings in which we make paella or barbecue with the family."

Regarding the opening of nightlife that has come with the drop of Lanzarote to alert level 1, he affirms that it is not necessary to "criminalize" any sector and that "what has to be done is to comply with the measures." "It is very easy to relax and when we relax, what we have already seen in other previous waves happens. The more contact of more people and with strangers, the more risk, but I think we all know what we have to do and what we have to avoid."

 

Average close contacts per positive

"That is very variable. Last week there were two young people who each contributed 20 contacts, and the other four who came out on the day contribute two or three of coexistence only. There are people who have a very active social life and others do not. The average between some and others would be between six and eight close contacts per positive," says Baltasar Gómez.

In other moments of the pandemic, that figure was higher, but currently he points out that they are not having traces of more than 20 people per positive. "In May we feared that it would increase with the communions, but no. Now there may be some specific party or some event, like those young people last week, but it is not usual."

However, he also warns that caution must be taken with the summer camps that are now starting for children. "That parents do not send children if they have compatible symptoms, because they could cause outbreaks."

 

Is there concern about the evolution that Lanzarote may have now?

After having had the worst incidence figures in the archipelago, Lanzarote is now among the three islands with the fewest cases of Covid-19. However, the reduction of restrictions with the passage to level 1 and the increase in the arrival of tourists and in the trips of the residents themselves makes it fear that the cases may increase at any time.

"We are at five, six, nine cases a day... It is not much, but we cannot relax. We are in summer, we are in a holiday period, but this has not ended. If we relax in the measures, we can have outbreaks," insists Baltasar Gómez, explaining that currently, about 45% of the cases are associated with outbreaks due to close contact.

In addition, he also warns of the risk of the arrival of British, after this country has announced the elimination of measures such as the use of masks, as well as the restriction of travel within a few weeks. "They have the delta strain in 90% of the cases," he stresses. "We hope that with the controls that have to be in place at the entrance to the islands, the incidence of cases will not increase, but in proportion something will have to affect, because if more people come there are more risks that there may be cases," he adds.

Regarding the elimination of the mask outdoors in Spain, he recognizes that "we are all very tired," but insists on asking for prudence, so that "it does not happen as in other areas of the country, where the casuistry is skyrocketing."

"We are in summer, we all want to enjoy everything, we do not have to use the mask outdoors, but we should do it if we are going to cross paths with people," he recalls, appealing to the conscience of all "for them, for their family and for others, to see if we can as a society defeat this virus."

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