The Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands has been assigning almost all cases of coronavirus detected on the island to Arrecife, but the reality is that of the 525 that are currently active, more than 150 do not reside in the capital. Thus, although it is true that Arrecife concentrates most of the cases and that it is the municipality that is experiencing the most critical situation, many are also distributed in other localities, especially in the municipalities of Tías, San Bartolomé and Teguise, which together add up to more than one hundred.
The reason for this discrepancy in the data is that Health counts cases based on the municipality where the health center that declares them is located, which does not necessarily coincide with the place where the patient resides. Therefore, it depends on which center they have attended, where the sample was taken to perform the test and even where it was analyzed.
“The geographical allocation of the case will be made based on the origin of the sample. When this parameter is not available, the case will be assigned to the reference hospital that processes the sample,” explains one of the detailed reports prepared by the Ministry. In fact, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, this caused some cases in Lanzarote to be assigned to Gran Canaria, as the samples were sent for analysis to that hospital, when there was no capacity on the island to process all the PCRs.
The latter has been corrected, but what continues to give a distorted image of the situation by municipalities is the daily update carried out by the Ministry, based on the place of declaration of the cases. “To solve this, the municipality of residence of the health card is also used,” explain the more detailed reports carried out by Health. And those reports analyzed by La Voz paint a picture that is closer to the incidence of Covid-19 in the different municipalities of the island.
The figures, municipality by municipality
Until Monday morning, the Ministry of Health had counted 529 active cases in Lanzarote and assigned almost 93% to Arrecife (specifically 491). However, taking into account the actual municipality of residence of the people who are in home isolation, the figure is reduced to 347 (65% of the total on the island).
As for the second most affected municipality, according to this other counting system, it is still Tías, although with more than double the cases. Specifically, Health assigned 18 to it based on the place of declaration of the case, but according to the municipality of residence it assigns 39.
Even greater is the difference in the case of San Bartolomé, which goes from 6 to 32 cases, becoming the third most affected. In this municipality, the fact that the town of Playa Honda continues to depend on the Titerroy Health area contributes to increasing the difference, so all its cases are assigned to Arrecife.
The fourth municipality with the most people in home isolation for having tested positive for coronavirus is Teguise, with 30 cases. Here, the figure is also five times higher than that assigned according to the place of declaration, which stands at 6.
For its part, Yaiza had until this Monday 13 active cases in home isolation (compared to the 6 that have been reported); and Tinajo 9, when only two had been reported by declaration of the case. As for Haría, it has been placed with zero cases, although according to these other data handled by the Ministry, based on the address on the health card, it actually has one.
To these cases we must add the 14 who are hospitalized, of which the municipality of residence is not recorded in the reports analyzed by La Voz. In addition, even discounting these cases there is a discrepancy of about 40 people who appear in the statistics by declaration of the case but who have not been assigned to any municipality in the data by residence, and which could correspond to tourists or people without a health card on the island. Precisely, that could be the reason why cases are notified by place of declaration and not by residence, to avoid that mismatch in the total figure, because the data for the island as a whole does fit the reality more closely with the other parameter.
Puerto del Carmen and Playa Honda, among the most affected towns
In addition to these data by residence of the cases, La Voz has also analyzed another parameter handled by the Ministry and which allows a greater approximation, based on the postal code. According to those figures, Puerto del Carmen and Playa Honda are among the most affected towns, having 19 cases each this Monday.
Tahíche and its surroundings follow closely, with 18 active cases until this Monday. For its part, most of the cases in the municipality of Yaiza are concentrated in Playa Blanca, with 12, while in all the other towns there would be a total of one case.
As for Tías, although it also accumulates the highest number of positives in its tourist area of Puerto del Carmen, adding all the other towns doubles that figure, adding another 20 between the town of Tías and the rest of the towns in the municipality.
For its part, San Bartolomé adds -to the 19 of Playa Honda- another 6 in the capital and two more in the rest of the towns in the municipality.
Finally, Teguise has several different postal codes, although it concentrates most of the cases in Tahíche and its surroundings, with 18, and in Costa Teguise, with 7. In the area of La Villa and the nearby towns there would only be one and in the postal code corresponding to the towns of Arrieta, Punta Mujeres and Tabayesco, three.
Tinajo only has one postal code, so the data consulted by this medium does not allow us to establish where they are located. And the same happens with Arrecife, since all the neighborhoods share the same postal code. In this case, it has been pointed out that most correspond to Valterra and Titerroy, although it is also true that these are the points where the reference health centers are located, and there are no published reports that allow us to separate which cases really correspond to these neighborhoods and which are from patients who live in other areas of the capital.
Five municipalities exceed 100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants
The distribution of cases taking into account the place of residence and not of declaration also directly influences the incidence of cases per number of inhabitants in each municipality. In the case of Arrecife, the latest figures from the Ministry placed it at 735.06 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while taking into account the residence it is reduced to 550.9 (which also far exceeds the Spanish average).
As for the rest of the municipalities, the data that had been disseminated placed them all well below 100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (and even some below 30), but the more specific reports from Health place another four municipalities above that average.
In the case of Tías, it would be at 193.36 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, in San Bartolomé at 170.07, in Tinajo at 143.33 and in Teguise at 134.28. For its part, Yaiza remains at 78.45 and Haría at 19.52.