No. 2 - Its Gran Canaria Magazine

30
INTERVIEW I ENTREVISTA Nº 2
AMÓS GARCÍA
Head of Epidemiology and Prevention for Public
Health at the Government of the Canary Islands and
President of the Spanish Vaccinology Association
"The Canaries continue to be a safe,
pleasant and fantastic holiday destination
for people to come to for a short break"
BY IBÁN PADRÓN
In these times of worldwide health crisis, what
message should we send out to tourists who are
considering coming to the Canary Islands for a
holiday or who are already on the islands?
The fundamental message is that they should not
miss out on the chance to come to a place such
as this, the Canary Islands, as they offer a whole
range of elements to make their stay a pleasant
and spectacular one; plus it boasts one of the finest
healthcare systems in the country.
In addition, with regard to the pandemic that is
affecting the whole world, although on some islands
we have experienced greater problems than
we would have liked during this second wave, the
fact is that the containing measures we immediately
implemented are producing reasonable
returns in terms of more bearable figures of the
disease. This can be seen for example in indirect
indicators such as the ‘R’ number, which now
stands below 1. This means that the capacity for
an infected person to transmit the virus to another
person is less than one, therefor they are not
likely to infect anyone else. I would have to add
that this figure was recently up to 5, and has been
reduced. As we can also create safe corridors between
countries to enable our tourists come to
visit the islands, I consider us to be an absolutely
essential holiday destination for people looking to
improve their quality of life.
We are coming into the high season for tourism
on the islands. Data related to the epidemic
are improving and numbers are now within the
range requested by visitor countries for them to
no longer advise against coming to this destination.
What is your assessment of the situation?
I would send them the same message but with
an added extra, in that they won’t be anything
like as cold if they come here -laughter-. They will
be able to enjoy our wonderful temperatures,
lovely beaches and swimming pools, taking into
account that, we are carefully seeing to a downward
spiral of the virus on the islands that had recently
been worst affected. I believe that winter is
the ideal season for regular visitors to continue to
travel to the island, and for those who don’t know
the island yet to also come. I would also point out
that our hotel complexes have made huge efforts
to ensure maximum safety for both clients and
employees.
What are the basic keys for safe travel?
Fundamentally not to forget to use face coverings,
they should do here exactly the same as they are
doing back home. Remind them that they should
increase hand hygiene and respect health guidelines,
such as for example social distancing. At the
same time it would also be desirable to have had
a PCR test before leaving to come here. All these
things can ensure a pleasant, proper and satisfactory
stay on the island for both visitors and ourselves.
The series of measures should be complete;
it should be remembered that a PCR, for example,
will indicate that today we show a negative result
but tomorrow we could catch the virus. Infections
occur due to not washing hands, not wearing face
masks or not maintaining social distancing.
You mentioned the healthcare infrastructure in
the Canaries. What would be the highlight?
The islands have a very powerful health system
that is equipped with all the latest technology in
terms of treatment and diagnostic techniques, so
that is another added advantage for our visitors.
Based on data, that reflect fewer numbers of
deaths due to the pandemic, is the virus becoming
less aggressive?
No it isn’t, it just shows that the virus is turning up
in different collectives. This can be explained, in
the first wave of the pandemic, PCR testing was
done mainly in hospitals, there was little capability
of doing them elsewhere at the time. Now
many more PCRs are being carried out and also
away from the socio-sanitary field, making it possible
to detect many asymptomatic carriers or
many cases with mild symptoms. Hospital admissions
are not occurring with the same intensity as
in the first wave, but we are still seeing them, so
we should never drop our guard.
Are beaches and swimming pools safe places?
On beaches and in swimming pools we must keep
a safe distance, basically, and while we are moving
around we should wear a face mask. There should
be no real problems there.
The Canaries continue to be the Canaries, even
though we are blighted by a wholly undesirable
microorganism. It is still a safe, pleasant and fantastic
holiday destination for people to come to
for a short break.