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welcome ladies and gentlemen to the AFTCAST, Tenerife afternoons. I’m your host, Tim Dowd. Today’s Thursday, the 18th of March, 2021.
On today’s show, we’re going to have a little bit of the weather, the latest in the COVID saga. We’re going to go over to Janet Anscombe and see what she’s been saying. Quick. Look at the headlines of the governments of the Canary islands.
Enjoy the show.
well, there’s going to be plenty of weather in the next few days. So they say
the weather has been really, really. Bright and blue. There’s a little bit of haze covering La Gomera, but there’ve been no clouds. Temperatures in the low twenties, a lot warmer in the sun. They’re promising sun for the next 14 days. They are saying high teens, low twenties, but here on the coast, we usually get the, the low twenties,
not a cloud in the sky. And wonderful, wonderful, wonderful warmth. That was your weather for today. Thursday, the 18th of March, 2021.
COVID 19 updates.
I’ve got the figures for yesterday, the 17th of March active COVID ticker Canary islands, total 4,238. That’s down from the day before Tenerife 2,247, also down Arona 87 by one, Adeje 109, which is down and Granadilla de Abona 89, which is up quite a bit, actually. And the seven day averages just started to drop at 78.4.
That was your COVID for today.
now we’re going to go with, to Janet Anscombe at janetanscombe.com.
a couple of headlines here, the EU commission unveils plan for digital green certificate. So we’ll have a look at that. And also the COVID-19 update 650 more cases and 12 further deaths in the last three days as we await Easter measures announcement tomorrow, which is of course today. And the Cabildo fills out details of Masca barranco opening.
Let’s start with that one.
The Cabildo has issued further details about the reopening of Masca barranco the walk will be available from Saturday the 27th of March on foot. Only as explained yesterday with the starting and end point being the visitor center in the Hamlet itself. To start with, to ensure that things are operating as desired numbers will be limited to 25 and walks will only be permitted at weekends and on public holidays between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM in the summer and 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM in the winter, outside these hours.
When the access control system won’t be in operation, the path will be closed for security reasons. Reservations can be made on the official website, https://www.caminobarrancodemasca.com/. at the moment it’s free, but it seems that a charge will be imposed after this pilot phase has been completed and the builder has approved the price with differentiated rates for residents.
And non-residents please know that given the scarcity of parking spaces in Masca the Cabildo says, that walkers must use public transport to get to Masca from Santiago del Teide or Buenavista. Well, that was interesting. If you’re a Walker or a hiker, they’re reopening the Masca trail which is good.
Unfortunately you used to be able to go down and then get a boats round to Los Gigantes. But now if you go down, you gotta walk back up.
Let’s have a look at the update for the COVID from Janet’s points of view. Updated 17th of March, just three days, but 650 more cases, nearly half of them in Tenerife and Gran Canarias accumulated cases. Now over 18,000, sadly, we also have 12 more deaths. Whatever is announced for Easter tomorrow, which is today is very unlikely to include any sort of loosening of restrictions.
So good news, not good news.
and the final one EU commission unveils plan for digital green certificates. to comply with measures, trying to limit the spread of COVID travelers to and within the EU have been asked to date to provide any of a range of documents. Like test results, personal declarations, et cetera. But obviously these have not been of a standardized format.
And the EU commission says that this has resulted in travelers, experiencing problems when moving within the EU, as well as generating reports of fraudulent or forged documents. The commission has therefore been working on a common approach to what’s been popularly called a vaccine passport. And today it has announced plans for a digital green certificates avoiding the word passport because it implies a universal entitlement. And therefore could be suggestive of discrimination against those. Not yet vaccinated as yet. This is just a legislative proposal, which is still has to be approved by both the EU council and the European parliament.
If, and when it is in place, however, it will be a temporary measure until the world health organization declares the pandemic over. And it will provide proof that the person has either been vaccinated against COVID or has recovered from it. Or alternatively has received a negative test result. This lasts because the EU says it would be discriminatory otherwise against those who couldn’t have had the vaccine at the point, they needed to travel.
The certificate will be available free of charge either in electronic or paper form, and we’ll include a QR code to guarantee authenticity. The commission says that it also adopted a complimentary proposal to ensure that the certificates will be issued to non EU nationals who reside in member States.
EG British residents in Spain. And it stresses that while there will be a separate proposal for non EU citizens, which are necessary for legal reasons, there will be no difference in treatment of citizens and eligible non EU citizens. Importantly, the certificate is not intended as a precondition for travel, but neither is it a guarantee of free movement?
What it will do is free the holder from any testing or quarantine requirements. And member States would have to accept it as they will be required to accept any vaccine proof, but entitled arrivals to a waiver from restrictions set to that country. Although the certificates is intended for EU nationals and residents within the EU. The plan also allows subject to commission approval countries like Spain with an economy, heavily reliant on tourism to agree bilateral agreements with non EU member States. Like the UK. There is an EU commission Q&A page here, and she puts a link to it on the proposals.
But obviously this is still early days. Spain, however, we’ll welcome the announcement because it’s been pushing for months for such a scheme under pressure from the tourism sector to introduce such a plan unilaterally for economic reasons, something the country did not want to do if there was a coordinated EU system.
So that’s good news for us.
I’d like to thank Janet Anscombe for publishing a fantastic website. If you want to read more or find out how to move over here, she’s got a lot of details there and go to janetanscombe.com.
So let’s have a quick look at the government website, gobiernodecanarias.org. The presidency MarÃa Isabel Nazco, Dolores Corbelelectronic headquarters becomes operational, which optimizes the relationship of citizens with the administration as a single sign on for all your dealings with the government. Uh, the Canadian government increases by 571,000 euros.
The aid to farmers affected by the 2020 storm. The young orchestra of Canary islands, we’ll make a new tour of the eight islands at Easter. A couple of other sub-headlines here. The Canarian youth observatory enables a new tool to obtain updated data. The HUC confirms efficiency of tele medicine in patients with hepatitis C in drug dependence care centers, and the government of the Canary islands recognizes 17 teachers and three educational centers with the Viera and Clavijo 2020 awards.
Okay. If you need to know any more about that, just nip over to gobeirnodecanarias.org/noticias.
I’d like to thank each and every one of you for listening today,
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stay safe. and from the lovely Island of Tenerife in the sunshine, this Tim Dowd saying goodbye. .