Greanpeace linked the Saharan air with Covid19 on February 26. “The haze is a much more silent killer than the coronavirus” and generates “a public health crisis.”
The figures for those affected by coronavirus in the Canary Islands present different figures by island although the problem is the same, in Tenerife 70% of those affected are in hospitals. There is a nuance: in Gran Canaria a good part of the population and tourists remained locked in their homes and hotels due to the biggest Saharan air storm in the last 30 years. Later, a forest fire that confined tourists as normality was recovering. In Tenerife there were massive events for carnival and fire and in Las Palmas as well, although there was no massive presence at parties.
At the end of the shortest month of the year, the average values of were between 40 and 70 kilometers per hour, that is, strong winds and continuous flow, which were accompanied by gusts that exceeded 100 and 200 kilometers per hour and that, in Izaña, Tenerife, it reached 160 kilometers per hour. This wind caused a continuous arrival of haze that has affected the entire Canary archipelago. It was a high-altitude storm and a surface anticyclone.
While in the province of Las Palmas people locked themselves in their homes, in Tenerife the celebration of massive carnival events was allowed, although with the same declaration of alert. The presence of dust particles in the area forced the airports of Gran Canaria and Lanzarote not to accept takeoffs or landings on February 23 due to low visibility. On February 24, that alert was canceled in Las Palmas capital. Education had schools and secondary schools closed until Wednesday, February 26.
Tenerife is the island with the highest number of coronavirus cases: 609 of the 878 registered in the Canary Islands
In the Canary Islands, no one gives a logical explanation, although doctors consulted by the Economist point to luck, the confinement of homes due to haze and the role of the Civil Guard, Army, Navy and National Police in the streets on days of free movement of people on the street. Tenerife concentrates almost 70% of the cases, with 37 patients in the ICUs. It is also true that in addition to carnival in Tenerife there was a closed hotel with seven affected tourists and victims in a teaching center in La Orotava.
Greanpeace did link calima to coronavirus. On February 26, he issued a statement saying that air pollution such as haze is “a much quieter killer” than the coronavirus and that dirty air generates “a public health crisis” with cases of childhood pneumonia, bronchiolitis and asthmatic crises. “that are triggered by the presence of microscopic particles that are considered carcinogenic substances of the first order.”
Health system crisis
One in five people who have contracted the coronavirus in the Canary Islands works for the health system (20.6%). This is the highest rate among professionals in Spain. Tenerife continues to be this Friday the island with the highest number of coronavirus cases, 609 of the 878 registered in the Canary Islands, 69% of the total, and its hospitals are the ones that bear the greatest burden at the moment, with 133 admitted patients, 37 of them in intensive care.
In line with these data, the two public reference hospitals in Tenerife are the health centers in the Canary Islands with the most patients with Covid-19: the Hospital Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria has 70 admitted (24 of them in the ICU) and the Universitario de Canarias (HUC) cares for 63 (13 in the ICU). The number of health workers infected to date: 181 people.
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