Brian Taylor
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Breaking news on Canarian Weekly following the emergency Canarian government meeting this morning, it has been announced that masks will be mandatory in public spaces from tomorrow. The decree to open “nightlife” has been reversed and this sector is once again regulated by the Decree of June 20, 2020 which says:
- Clubs and other nightlife establishments may open their outdoor spaces exclusively to the public, for consumption sitting at tables.
- In any case, the capacity in terraces will be 75 percent and interpersonal distance must be maintained.
- Dance floors are not allowed.
The government appealed to the population and especially the under 30’s to follow the guidance. The Government of the Canary Islands has also agreed today, to ban smoking in open spaces where distancing is not met.
“Up until now the Canary Islands remained as the only autonomous community where masks were not mandatory in public spaces. At this time, the pandemic continues to draw an upward curve in the Canary Islands, with 536 active cases of the 3,110 accumulated since it started.”
The announcement doesn’t mention any other changes affecting hotels or tourist resorts.
El Pais reported today that the Canary Islands are introducing restrictions from this Friday on smoking in public spaces if social distancing cannot be maintained. The restrictions are aimed at reducing the spread of the coronavirus. A number of other regions is Spain have introduced restrictions or are considering doing so.
The Spanish Society for Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery recommended the measure to combat the spread of coronavirus. In July the Public Health Commission for the National Health System, warned that smoking or vaping increase the risk of coronavirus infection.
on a slightly more positive note the air passenger traffic into Gran Canaria picked up markedly in July in a Canarian Weekly report, though still nearly 2/3’s down on normal level:-
“Gran Canaria’s airport, despite experiencing a 64.3% decrease in passengers, is at the top of the Canarian aerodromes and in seventh place in the national ranking for volume of traffic.
In total, it served 381,636 passengers, 687,305 less than in the same month last year.
It is followed by Tenerife North, with 291,623 passengers, 46.1% less, and Lanzarote with 194,355 passengers, 70.1% less than a year earlier.”the Canary News also reported in the last few days about infections and travel policies, and we can only hope that things stabilise and improve soon, and that the UK government may review it’s position on quarantine on return from the islands:-
(and the Canarian Weekly reports the Canarian Government is meeting this morning to review the spread of the virus and if necessary adopt measures to curb it)– over half of recent infections in the islands are in Gran Canaria – most of these in the district around Las Palmas
– “more than 85% of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases in the Canary Islands over the last week have been people under 30 years of age, who have been infected during leisure activities or at family gatherings without having maintained the prescribed security measures such as social distancing. Over the last 24 hours, 85 new COVID-19 cases have been detected, 59 of which are on Gran Canaria, 20 on Tenerife, 2 on Fuerteventura and 4 on Lanzarote. On Gran Canaria 95% of the new cases have been under 30 years of age and on Tenerife this percentage drops to 85%.”
– “Almost all the Schengen countries” have issued recommendations against travelling to certain areas of Spain , many have even imposed restrictions to control the arrival of travellers or tourists from Spain.
For now, only five countries – Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Sweden – have not advised against travel to Spain or any particular Spanish regions, in the face of fears around the spread of the coronavirus. The article summarises the policy for each country.Lets hope the UK government might, where sensible, bring in regions within countries that are safe to travel too.
a couple of items from the Canary News, firstly:-
– the Canary Island government have clarified rules for mask wearing – “the Government have now stipulated that masks must be worn in all indoor public spaces and areas open to the public, except while eating and drinking. Outdoors the rules remain pretty much the same, if you cannot guarantee a minimum distance of 1.5m you must wear a mask. For clarity, the Governing Council have also strongly recommended masks be worn even in private settings indoors, when people form different households meet, and that the safety distance should be maintained even outdoors at private events.
It has been specifically stated that everyone over six years of age is required to wear a mask in the following cases:
– On public roads and in all outdoor spaces, when it is not possible to guarantee a safety distance of at least 1.5 meters from other people.
– In any closed space for public use, or that is open to the public, regardless of whether people maintain the interpersonal safety distance of at least 1.5 meters.
Use of masks in hotels and restaurants
All guests, staff and clients are obliged to wear a mask within closed indoor public areas and spaces of hotels and restaurant establishments and hospitality services, including bars and cafeterias. These may be removed only when eating food or drinking, and while maintaining the minimum social distance of 1.5m. In open outdoor spaces of these establishments and services, masks may be removed as long as the minimum interpersonal safety distance of at least 1.5 meters is guaranteed and maintained between non-cohabitants, and, of course while, eating and drinking.”
more detail is on the Canary News article
R rate curve
I think the current active cases are a more reliable guide that the accumulative – the Canary Islands are still quite low overall, though not as low as they were (see info below on R rate currently 2.28 at 2nd August) – that must be inevitable as tourism increases, and as Wolfgang has posted the islands are still a lot safer than many European destinations (and for that matter some parts of the UK)
If you look at active cases per 100,000 population – not quite same as the European data which shows a 14 day cumulative per 100,000 (so if anyone found up to date numbers please share). Numbers for active cases, 11th August, from Canary Island Health Authority:-
- Gran Canaria – 274 (pop 867k) – ratio 31.6
- Tenerife – 154 (pop 949k) – ratio 16.2
- Fuertoventura – 12 (pop 123k) – ratio 9.8
- Lanzarote – 23 (pop 151k) – ratio 15.2
The population figures are inhabitants and do not include the tourists numbers which would reduce the ratios.
The 14 day cumulative figures recently published in the UK include – Malta 33.6 / Germany 12.1 / France 24.2 / UK 15.7 / Greece 9.4 / Italy 6.4 / Norway 6.5
Some areas of UK are over 50, and at least 3 areas of UK have double rate from around 10 to over 20 in just one week.I’ll add a slide for cases by day in Gran Canaria on next post.
Brian
NB – the other source of Spanish government data is from the national Spanish Health Authority:-
- website on this link for various data and information (In Spanish, translates in Google Chrome)
- very useful charts on this link, though data is about a week behind – to see the Gran Canaria data, select the “Palmas, Las” location on the drop down – shows daily case up to 2nd August, and also shows the R rate at 2.28 for the 2nd August
and today the data shows 274 active cases on the 11th, up from the 221 the day before that you saw – the number per 100,000 ration is still low – let’s hope it levels off soon.
Hi Andy
AVC do seem to be applying the rules quite strictly. Though as Roger mentioned from Anfi’s viewpoint they are open.
It must be very frustrating. I hope you do have a good rest on your week(s) off wherever you go.And happy to catch up if we are out at same time.
I’m booked out in October with fixed weeks, so no hope of banking or changing. Just hoping the quarantine might have been lifted by then, though the recent pick up in cases in the Canary Islands including Gran Canaria is a bit worrying.Kind regards, Brian
Hi Jean
I’ve moved your post into a Forum section we already had open on this topic. A number of members had reported “cold calls” on a similar theme. If you look back on the posts you’ll see that David, Richard, Paul, myself and others have provided information over the last few months. Or just read down from the top of this section.
We believe these calls are scams to get personal information, or are trying to get you to sign up for legal action.
I mentioned in a previous post that Anfi is owned by two companies. One of these companies has an owner who has companies that are in the process, or have been, declared bankrupt. This may mean that the half share of Anfi has to be sold to help pay the debts.
The company that owns the other half of Anfi has been trying to buy all of it for some while.Regards, Brian
thanks, useful to know that about the 25 immigrant cases. Mogan was showing 15 cases, so the 25 must be counted elsewhere. The “remarks” with the government data said 79 of the 193 cases are not geographically assigned as are foreigners or lack an address – perhaps the 25 immigrants are part of the 79. Still 25 is quite significant
Coronavirus data for Gran Canaria is published by the Government of the Canary Islands / Canary Islands Health Service has daily data. The website for the Health Service data is on this link . The box labelled Data (Datos) takes you to the interactive panel [this link for shortcut] for data across the Canary Islands.
- in the panel:-
- there are versions for desktop and for mobile devices
- click on left side to choose Gran Canaria, or another island
- look top right for the figures including active cases and number for each region of the islands, including Mogan
- each of the tables or graphs can be expanded by clicking on “x” in top right of table / graph
Currently showing 193 active cases, mainly in the Las Palmas area, with 15 on Mogan district. The number of cases has gone up quite a bit in last week or so, though much lower than mainland Spain and some European countries.
The population of Gran Canaria is around 900,000 – and boosted by tourists (normally around 4m tourists per year)If you find any other information, or have comments, please reply to this post
————————
The notes with the data from the Health Service website translate as:-
Date of data : 8/9/2020 14:00:36 .
Source : Government of the Canary Islands (Canary Islands Health Service)
Remarks :
– The table shows the positives confirmed by laboratory test according to the residence stated on your health card.
– Some positives that appear in the total count may not be geographically assigned as they are foreigners or lack an administrative address. A total of 79 cases do not reflect residence.
– In the calculation of closed cases, the cases that have been discharged by the corresponding doctors and whose case has been reviewed and closed by the epidemiological authority are included.
– The information shown reflects data from different databases of the Canary Islands Health Service, and is subject to epidemiological interpretation. This information is reflected for informational and transparency purposes only. The only official health data are those reflected in the corresponding daily reports.
– Positive cases refer to positives declared validated, that is, declared two days before the update date.
– The information displayed may be subject to revision or correction by the source in subsequent updates.Prepared by : Cartográfica de Canarias, SA ( GRAFCAN )
thanks Wolfgang, the link I found is for the Government of the Canary Islands – I’ll do separate post with a links for members and a little more data
On the data from the canary islands authority, if I’ve read it right, as of today the 9th, data shows now 15 cases (from 3) in Mogan and 193 (from 25) across Gran Canaria – is that the same as your data shows now?
If correct that’s quite a jump from the 1st – though still lower than many areas.
https://grafcan1.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/156eddd4d6fa4ff1987468d1fd70efb6
That’s a good idea – I should have suggested that in my first reply. I did check mine and Google did not flag it as a problem.
Hi Andy
So sorry to hear of you being caught up in the problems the travel restrictions are causing.
We’d expect our members renting to try and vary the week for you if they can.– on your specific question – if the person renting to you is a fixed week owner then, so far, we are not aware of any rebate being offered by Anfi – there may be discussions between the liaison committee reps over next month or so and Anfi but not right now – for points / floating see below
– the rebate was on weeks lost week 11 to 30 when Anfi was closed
– if the people renting to you have flexibility (which if it is AVC they are likely to as Points or Floating or AVC Weeks members) – they may be able to re-book the week. I can’t recall off hand all the details but Points members can can change the booking up to two weeks beforehand.
If they are dealing with Customer Services they may have fixed weeks.There may be more info from Anfi about this, as with Puerto and Emerald closed for at least two weeks, and with the general level of people at Del Mar being quite low, there must be a lot of people affected, other than those with points of AVC weeks who can potentially re-book.
AVC and Customer Services are dealing with a lot of work due to recent changes but we’d heard they were prioritising people affected by travel restrictions and due to travel now.
Our committee members on liaison committee have raised issues for members before, the problem here is that as you’ve said Anfi will really only deal with the owner as only the owner can request a change for their week.
Do let us know how this works through – what I don’t understand is if those renting to you are AVC points members, then they should be able to phone AVC and get the week changed over the phone, provided the 2 week notice is the same for them as in my contract.
I’ll ask round to see if anyone else I know has any info to help
Kind regards, Brian
Thanks, this doesn’t mean the passwords were taken from the Anfi UK Members’s system – it means the password has been found on a site, or sites, that sell or pass around passwords stolen from various sources & is advising you to update the password.
See the password checker below. Best to change the passwords identified.
Did the Google information say where the password breach occurred?Google have an extension for Google Chrome browser, and that is now built into Chrome as standard now to alert people of password breaches.
- A useful site to check passwords is – https://haveibeenpwned.com if you put your email into the checker you’ll get an idea of the size of the datalists that have been breached
- useful article in Forbes by Davey Winder who writes on security for PC Pro magazine
- article about the Google password checker in Verge which also mentions https://haveibeenpwned.com
- it’s generally recommended that people use password managers – Google provide one via Chrome, though many reviews recommend LastPass or 1Password, which work across laptop / phone / other devices – there are many reviews of password managers online
Regards, Brian
I agree Robert, it’s odd there is nothing on Anfi’s website about this.
We’ve had reports from the Gran Anfi end of the site that it is very quite, and under occupied, though Maroa was said to be very busy at the weekend.
Regards, Brian
Thanks – I understand that Anfi can’t be responsible for the UK and Norway governments. But assuming Anfi have had the maintenance money for all the apartments at Puerto, and aren’t refunding UK and Norway members who can’t travel, did Anfi give a rationale for closing those resorts? Why not just open and have 30% of apartments vacant.
I also agree with your point about infection rates and hopefully the islands will continue to maintain a low level.I’ve had a message from a member due out to a Puerto penthouse who is understandably very unhappy at hearing about closure and has had no info from Anfi.
Kind regards, Brian
Hi Wolfgang
Thanks for letting us know.
If Anfi are closing Puerto and Emerald for 2 weeks because overall numbers visiting are down because of the travel restrictions, has there been any discussion of extending the voucher/refund scheme to members who can’t attend in the 2 weeks from 31st July?
Anfi must have spent a lot of time getting the apartments ready, though there must be some savings in the closure period.
Kind regards, Brian
Lots has changed in the last week or so!! You’ll have seen the news that last weekend the government has removed Spain and the islands from it’s list of countries exempted from quarantine, and a day or so later changed the FCO advice to be against travelling to the Canary Islands.
The Spanish government and the Canary Island regional authority are trying to get the Islands put into a travel corridor as the rate of infection in the Islands is quite low. The UK government has refused so far, though be interesting if Scotland, Wales or Northern Island reached a different view!As a follow on airlines are changing schedules and Jet2 are cancelling many flights and pulling forward the return flights for many people in Canary and Balearic islands & getting some bad press about how they are doing it.
Then yesterday we heard reports that Anfi are not opening Puerto and Emerald on 31st July, and the 2 resorts will not open for at least two weeks. People due to stay at Puerto and Emerald will be accommodated in the other resorts.
Whilst we knew this was a possibility, Anfi have not yet informed the liaison committee representatives, nor have Anfi put any information on their website.We’ll publish any new information as soon as we hear more and if members have any extra info please post here.
Regards, Brian
Hi Janette
Thanks for the query and for reporting this. A number of members have reported calls – they are in another topic on the Forum – if you look at this link it gives David’s response and if you read the posts before that you’ll see what other members have posted.
Be good to hear from any other members who have had calls and not posted yet?We believe the company or companies are trying to get you to sign up to legal services to take action on your contract or to get money in some form or other from you.
The calls seem either to be about COVID or about court claims and Anfi going bust. COVID is not affecting Anfi like say hotels, as Anfi have maintenance costs upfront from us. Anfi are only offering refund of the costs they save from staff furloughed, reduced maintenance, energy bills etc.
Court cases and costs are an ongoing thing and perhaps harder to judge where that will all end up. When the court cases started Anfi had ample reserves to meet claims. Also remember Anfi has different companies – you bought from Sales and court actions are against Sales – the operational management is with Resorts. Each members weeks are lodged with Continental Trustees.
The half owner of Anfi may have one of his companies go bankrupt and have to sell his half of Anfi – the other half is owned by IFA / Lopesan resorts who are a large group and raised over €100m a year or so back for developments in Gran Canaria and potentially Tauro. Also Lopesan are involved with another company in hotel acquisitions in Canary Islands.
Last year Lopesan wanted to buy all of Anfi but Carzola would not sell.I’ll move your post over so it sits in that section with other members queries.
Kind regards, Brian
Hi John
Thanks for letting me know – I’d made a mistake on the links and have corrected that – the links should now open in a new tab with the pdf showing the Anfi letter
If you could check and let me know if that’s working OK for you now
Kind regards, Brian
For anyone else reading this query, I’ve answered in another Forum section – https://anfiukmembers.co.uk/forums/topic/blackmail-anfi/#post-57995
– at least for those who have new “points” contracts pending signature, as the points balance is not shown online – see the post for more details
