Tenerife Street Party Breaks Social Distancing Rules

This is the moment a large group of young people celebrate in the streets of Tenerife in defiance of social distancing regulations.

The young people gathered in the area of ​​Las Veronicas, in the municipality of Arona, on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife where they had fun without respecting social distancing rules.

In the images, a crowd of young people can be seen dancing on a road along a zebra crossing on a Saturday night.

The street party comes amid the gradual reopening of nightlife venues in some areas of Tenerife which has led young people to getting together more frequently during the weekends, local newspaper Diaro de Avisos report.

According to the same newspaper, the local police had to intervene to disperse the young people.

In addition, the police will reinforce the tasks of control, surveillance and deterrence in nightlife areas of the municipality in order to guarantee that sanitary measures are complied with.

According to the Spanish news channel Antena 3, the Arona city council where the incident occurred has requested reinforcements from the central government of the Spanish state to help enforce sufficient measures.

In the video, the young people can also be seen not wearing face masks. The use of masks in the Canary Islands is not mandatory as long as a minimum distance of 1.5 metres (5 feet) can be maintained, which is clearly not the case in the video.

The Vice President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Roman Rodriguez, told El Dia that the mandatory use of masks will be reinforced “if the rules are not followed on the islands and it is necessary”.

Rodriguez also stated: “We are not aware that tightening the use of masks improves the few problems we have for now. The outbreaks have occurred above all in private settings, celebrations and family gatherings. ”

Tenerife, with almost 1 million inhabitants, has 154 people currently still positive for COVID-19 according to the latest available statistics (11 August).

In the entire archipelago of the Canary Islands (2,153,000 inhabitants), there are 504 people who are currently positive for COVID-19.

Of those infected, 85 percent are people under 30 years of age and that the vast majority of those have no symptoms and are asymptomatic.

The government of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands to which Tenerife belongs recently said that it will assume the expenses of tourists who test positive for COVID-19 during their trip to the islands.

The total cost of the policy is around 450,000 EUR (407,243 GBP) to cover tourists visiting the island until 31st December. The insurance is complementary and will only be activated when the tourists have no other insurance.