The mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez, has publicly asked the Government of the Canary Islands to lower Lanzarote to alert level 1, as she maintains that "the situation facing the restaurant and nightlife sectors is unsustainable". According to a statement, "day after day she feels the discontent and nervousness of local businesses, the self-employed and small businesses, mostly in the leisure and restaurant sector, who are forced to lay off their employees due to the island's permanence in phase 2 by order of the Government of the Canary Islands".
“The economic damages are of such magnitude that many of them have hired staff fifteen days ago and find themselves in the need to send them back to unemployment, so I ask the Government of the Canary Islands to move Lanzarote and La Graciosa to level 1 of COVID alert, since it has been verified that we do not have that great sanitary pressure, nor is the curve of positives on the island significant”, defends the mayor.
For the highest municipal official, “out of prudence we have waited to see the evolution of the accumulated data this week, but it is obvious that there are no reasoned reasons that justify the fact that we are still at this level today". Thus, she considers that the Canarian Government Council "should be more objective and temper the decision-making to the health situation of each island”.
Astrid Pérez emphasizes "the continuous complaint" she receives, “from small and medium-sized local businesses, especially from the restaurant and nightlife sectors, about the significant economic damages that this continued decision entails”. In this regard, she adds that “they have endured the situation as they could, accumulating losses and more losses, confident in the recovery of August and September that will not reach them, given the health limitations imposed by phase 2”.
“The truth is that a slight economic recovery was expected for Lanzarote in this summer season, nothing comparable to the figures of other years, but enough so that the care pressure in the Social Services area would not increase, something that if continuing in phase 2, will be a harsh reality", she insisted, reiterating that in her opinion "there are no epidemiological arguments that justify this agony for the economic development of Lanzarote”..
