Coinciding with the protest that the farmer Manuel Peláez is leading for two days at the doors of the Cabildo, the president, María Dolores Corujo, has sent a statement to remember that this weekend "the restrictions that prevent the opening of agricultural markets and flea markets are eased, given that the measures that prevent their opening end on the 26th and the number of infections has evolved positively".
"Day by day the number of infections is decreasing, so the possibility of recovering these activities is getting closer", he said. That same message has been transferred to Manuel Peláez by the counselor Ángel Vázquez, who on Wednesday morning approached the place where this farmer has been "chained", who has spent the night in front of the Cabildo.

However, Manuel insists that what he wants is a commitment that this situation will not happen again, since it is the second time that the closure of food markets has been ordered since the beginning of the pandemic. The first was when the state of alarm was decreed and then, after being able to reopen, they were closed again when the Government of the Canary Islands decided to toughen the measures in Lanzarote and Gran Canaria due to the rebound in cases.
"The determinations aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus are proposed by the health authorities and agreed by the Government of the Canary Islands, responding to epidemiological criteria", Corujo also stressed. "It seems that we forget that we were close to 600 active infections and 320 infections per 100,000 people in 14 days", recalled the president, who stressed that these figures "represent a health problem of extraordinary gravity that necessarily implies the tightening of control measures".
Corujo has reiterated that it is "essential to follow the criteria of the experts to avoid the lack of control in infections, thus avoiding having to adopt more drastic measures that may require confinement".
"Public health is an inalienable objective and it is not a question of choosing between health and economy, but of graduating health measures according to how the number of infections varies", said the president, who stressed that "not only have agricultural markets and flea markets been restricted", but "at this time we suffer limitations that affect all sectors of activity", although "fortunately, the evolution of the number of infections allows us to look towards the coming days with greater optimism".

For his part, Manuel Peláez, who during these two days of protest has received support from both citizens and colleagues, argues that food markets should be considered an activity of first necessity, as is the case with supermarkets, and says that he does not understand why other activities, such as bars, can open and not these spaces, which are one of the main tools of the primary sector to sell their products. In addition, he stresses that when the closure was ordered, all the health measures required by the authorities were being adopted to ensure safety, including disinfection, capacity control and safety distances.