Health reports 78 cases of the Omicron variant in the Canary Islands

The first case registered by Ómicron in the Canary Islands was confirmed on December 7 in Gran canaria and corresponds to a middle-aged man. After this first positive in this new variant of the coronavirus, another was confirmed in Tenerife on the 9th, that of a woman whose positive was detected by chance in a screening, since she had not previously traveled to risk countries. The genomic surveillance network for COVID-19 was monitoring about 80 samples, of which 76 were confirmed and continues with all those that are suspected after performing PCR.

Outbreak at the Havana nightclub

Among these cases under study for being suspicious of Ómicron is, due to the high rate of transmission of infections, the outbreak produced in a concert held last week at the Havana nightclub, in the urban case of Adeje, and that already affects 69 people. Public health maintains the call for people who attended a concert at that club on December 7, to call the line 900 112 061 to carry out PCR and to be able to quickly detect possible positive cases.

Regarding the message circulating on WhatsApp in which an appeal is allegedly made To all those who were in the discos or nightlife venues such as TAO, Brandys, Urban, Ático, Cooper, La Santa or Mojos and Mojitos come to have a PCR, Health denies this call.

Omicron Suspicion Percentage

The confirmation of the 78 cases with the Omicron variant confirms the presence on the three islands of the new variant that places the suspicion of Omicron in 21.2 percent of the samples sequenced in Tenerife and by four percent in Gran Canaria in week 49, corresponding from December 6 to 12. Nevertheless, the predominant variant in all the islands continues to be Delta.

As for the Omicron variant, it is necessary to wait to know its evolution to determine if its incidence in the Archipelago may increase, although given the experience and percentages of evolution obtained in other territories where it is present and the behavior of other strains of SARS-CoV-2, it is foreseeable that it will acquire prominence, although for now no behaviors are extracted from which it could become dominant .

Monitoring in the genomic surveillance network

The SCS Genomic Surveillance Network will continue to monitor suspected cases and for this a protocolized system for detection, monitoring and control of the presence of the different variants of SARS-Cov2 in the Islands.

This network, set up through the Directorate of Public Health, establishes a series of controls that allow obtaining a actual incidence x-ray of the different strains of the virus in the Islands.