“Now I’m a bit calmer because there’s more information,” says Marialaina Retina Fernández, a pensioner, who describes the local healthcare facilities as “the best there is”. She appears resigned to the idea of briefly sharing her island with the boat’s passengers.
“It’s not ideal that they all end up coming here,” she explains. “But if [the authorities] say they’ll do everything possible to make sure nobody gets infected, let’s hope that’s how it is.”
MV Hondius is arriving with the agreement of Madrid, but this has not prevented the far-right Vox party from trying to capitalise on the issue, drawing a comparison with the arrival of illegal migrants.
The WHO and the Spanish government have been at pains to play down epidemiological comparisons between the current situation and the Covid pandemic. However, for many Canary islanders, the cruise ship, with its multi-national passengers, is an unwanted reminder of the early days of Covid: a German tourist on the island of La Gomera was the first identified case in Spain, and its detection was soon followed by the confinement of around 1,000 guests and staff in a Tenerife hotel.
Retina Fernández puts a positive spin on the islands’ habit of hitting the headlines due to international crises.
“We’re used to all sorts of problems arriving here,” she says. “You can see that we’re good at managing these situations.”
