• Scenarios: A report estimates that Spain will not be able to lift the confinement until June 1
  • Direct: last minute of the coronavirus

While Pedro Sánchez announced in Congress his intention to extend the confinement for another 15 days, other parts of Spain, specifically on the islands, can't wait to start abandoning it.

With a rate in Spain of 204 cases of coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants ; Murcia, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands are at the bottom with 50, 68 and 48 cases, with the addition that, on the islands, with ports and airports practically closed, no one enters and leaves without justification since the declaration of the state of alarm.

In La Gomera, after almost a month of confinement, only nine cases have appeared, four in El Hierro and, in the other archipelago, only three in Formentera. In its neighboring Ibiza, with 150,000 inhabitants, only one new case has been detected in the last 48 hours. These last two islands share a hospital, Can Misses, where the emergencies have been emptied, only a third of the UVIS are occupied, and only 19% of the beds planned for the coronavirus have a patient.

It was precisely the Balearic Govern of the socialist Francina Armengol , who through his spokesman for the Autonomous Committee on Infectious Diseases, Javier Arranz , offered the islands as a "way out" of the confinement: "In the island territories it is something to value, you can try it and it would be a good option to start lowering the measures. It would be good for the rest of the State to see how it works and what the result is, but it is not up to us. It should also be taken into account what that would look like in other regions. Society has to understand if it is feasible. "

Along the same lines, the Canary Islands have proposed specific measures of unconfinement to the State based on "the geographical and sanitary singularities" and "following a different rhythm than the rest of the State".

The Canary Islands General Directorate of Public Health announced last Monday that "it will prepare a package of specific measures that take into account the singularities of the Canary Islands , to propose to the Government of Spain once a staggered lack of confinement is allowed."

His health situation has also allowed the government of Ángel Víctor Torres to offer the Ministry of Health an inventory of infrastructure available in the Archipelago for asymptomatic positives who want to literally isolate themselves in the Canary Islands.

The spokesman for the Balearic Medical Union, Miguel Lázaro , ruled out that, despite the good health situation in the Balearic Islands, their toilets can be moved to other Communities, although they can receive patients. On Tuesday a hotel in Ibiza was set up to accommodate up to 78 mild patients who are under home supervision , but whose social or family situation recommends isolation, but so far they have only found one patient.

The spokesman of the Autonomous Committee of Infectious Diseases of the Balearic Islands also warns that we are in a "very unstable" period, and that by lifting the confinement measures earlier in the islands "you can move forward or go backwards, and in that case it would be necessary to rectify immediately "

After a month of confinement, and given the evolution of the cases, in addition to the situation of double and even triple isolation of the islands, the islands could hardly experience a rebound.

The feeling of the population is the same. Hence it would not be easy to understand in many cases the prolongation of the state of alarm, especially with regard to the confinement of children, or walks in isolated areas. Especially since the Police have launched drones to patrol the countryside and deserted beaches, to fine many times people who walk alone.

From the Balearic Ministry of Health remember that a country is not definitively free of a disease until two incubation periods pass without new infections. As in the case of the coronavirus, the incubation period is 14 days, 28 days would have to pass without new infections until the epidemic was overcome. But until we reach that stage "we have to take many steps before," he points out.

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