Coronavirus | Ibiza Updates

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morning,

last night's news has fallen like a bomb here. rather than creating a safe flight corridor between the balearics and the UK, the UK have added our islands to the no travel recommendation list instead. the local sentiment here is of absolute incredulity and impotence. here in ibiza, we've currently got four covid patients in hospital. the last casualty because of covid is over three months ago (!). together with formentera we've got 17 active covid cases (so 13 of them are either without any symptoms or very mild ones only). we've not had any spike in numbers in weeks. the clubs aren't open, wearing a mask is compulsory and the government is doing everything they can to keep the balearics as safe as they have been since we've flattened the curve.

we understand talks about a safe flight corridor are still ongoing and maybe this decision gets reverted at some point, but for now airlines are already cancelling their flights between the UK and balearics in what's our most important month of the year. UK tourism makes up 40% of the balearics total tourism IIRC and thus you can probably imagine the frustration. unless we get that air bridge done very quickly, this mini season we just started this year might be over very soon. sorry I can't spin a positive message on this right now!
 
various hotels are considering closing early this year if the UK quarantine fcukup persists... https://www.periodicodeibiza.es/pit...a-pitiusa-dice-mas-hotel-decidido-cerrar.html

cala bassa and conta reached its capacity yesterday - as expected to be honest. if you are planning to go to one of the smaller coves, go early to make sure you get your spot. the upside of it is it really won't get as full as in a normal summer (in peak season cala conta is usually a no-go for me, but this year...why not?). today cala boix has reached capacity too (which simply means no more new people can access the beach until people start to leave). the beach isn't getting evacuated, but rather the capacity is being controlled.

currently we have 18 active covid cases, the tracers found a few more asymptomatic people connected to to some of the new cases that came up in the last few days.
 
one new case here which brings us to 23 active cases on ibiza and formentera. 20 of them are at home because they‘re either asymptomatic or only have very mild symptoms.
 
24 active cases as per today, only 3 of them in hospital care though. the rest are asymptomatic or mild cases

switzerland as of today requires quarantine for people returning from spain, but excludes the balearics and canary islands as other countries such as belgium and germany also do. come on boris johnson, you can do the same. because of your decision, UK bookings are down 63% for ibiza and 78% for formentera. without this stupid quarantine rule we'd have a half normal month of august now. the island is busier yet again than compared to a week or two ago, just the brits are missing...and as mentioned previously, without the UK clientele it's difficult for most people and businesses here.
 
been a while, so here's another general update as to how things are ticking here on the island.

it's mid-august now and you can see and feel it. it's gotten yet busier again in the past few days, the amount of flights coming and going is high albeit UK flight cancellations and the island has become much more lively now. the port is busy in the evenings (I'd say ibiza town is the big winner of this 'season' generally), but even san an and playa d'en bossa have picked up a little now. in pdb, while the area around ushuaïa is dead quiet (unsurprisingly since ushuaïa is closed), the stretch between tantra, over to jet/bora bora and up to coco's/walkers is definitely busier now than a few weeks ago. it's still very spanish, but the italians are back too now and I hear lots of french, dutch and german out on the streets. english too, but definitely far less than in a normal season.

most of the beaches are busy during the day as are the beach clubs. some of the small beaches get too full (in corona times they can't be as full as usual) so if you wanna visit any of the following, go for a morning visit or a sunset swim: cala conta, cala bassa, cala salada, cala boix, cala gracio & gracioneta. if you rock up at noon you can be pretty sure they're full. the bigger beaches aren't an issue.

traffic on the roads is pretty heavy - to me it's not so surprising. since there isn't proper clublife this year, pretty much everyone gets a car or a scooter to go and explore the island. I hear right now it's hard to even get a car, it seems lots of the car rental companies have ordered far less cars than usual and this would explain the current shortage and stupidly high prices.

somehow also the event scene is slowly waking up. small daytime or evening gatherings at tantra, W hotel, mikala and other bars are happening now rather than the night time parties in the big clubs. then o beach are doing their daytime thing as is ibiza rocks - the latter are now starting to bring in special guests, I hear more of this is planned this month still. and the zoo has just reopened with a seated concept last saturday (more TBA soon). and let's of course not forget about las dalias and their events. to me it really feels as if just in the last few days a breath of life has come into ibiza. while of course not comparable to any normal summer, it definitely feels closer to a normal season now than how it felt two or three weeks ago still.

on the other hand, and that just comes with opening up I guess, corona numbers have gone up in the last week too. tomorrow we'll be getting the latest recount, but by friday we were at 35 active cases if I remember correctly. if you look around europe, numbers are slowly creeping up again in almost all countries now. the good news is that it seems to be a general trend that, because of far more testing done everywhere, more asymptomatic cases are being dectected and thus the number of cases alone is really not crucial. but I'll give you a proper breakdown with hospital numbers etc tomorrow.
 
I think it's a good moment to reactivate this thread now.

after what has been a very difficult start into the new year with a massive covid spike right after the new year, the numbers look far better again now. hospital pressure is easing, new daily cases really low - we are on the right way. vaccination is underway and the big lots should arrive for april time.

in the meantime the first establishments are cautiously planning their re-openings. the much loved rita's cantina in san antonio will open as soon as the government give the go ahead and mikasa in marina botafoch has announced their reopening for 17th march.

I don't think I'll post an update every day, but rest assured, whenever there‘s important info coming out, here's where you'll find it.
 
here's a quick update before the weekend.

- the epidemiologic situation on all balearic islands keeps improving. in menorca, mallorca and formentera, restaurant terraces may reopen from 2nd march onwards during the day (especially menorca and formentera are looking very favourable right now). ibiza is also looking far better, but since our 14day incidence is still far higher than on the rest of the archipelago, we're bound to wait two more weeks while the curve keeps going down. as per yesterday, ibiza's 14d incidence per 100k was at 217 (it had been at 2300 at the end of january!!!) while the other islands are between 17 and 83. so it's understandable we need to wait a little longer, not least because we still have quite a lot of people in the hospital and in ICU. but the number of daily new cases is low, we're talking low two digit numbers (10 in the last 24hrs), as opposed to the 400 daily we had right after the holidays. so I'm confident that life will slowly start to return from mid march onwards.

- the current consensus seems to be that it's smarter to sacrifice easter and work towards a good summer season rather than risk kicking off another wave of infections while the vaccination rate is still really low (on ibiza, only just over 2000 people out of 150K have had both their shots as of today). as mentioned previously, from end of march/start of april onwards the vaccination campaign should speed up (hopefully).

- 'regular' tourism should hopefully start in may or latest june here on the balearics - all depending on epidemiologic situation, travel corridors, maybe vaccine passports - all TBC still, but normal tourism should certainly be possible by then.

- amnesia have announced their 2021 closing party for saturday 23rd october. obviously they are hoping to be able to run events far earlier than that, but it's smart to start announcing the later events first and then add earlier events as the situation evolves. lots of venues are still planning to run events from mid summer onwards.

- I'm pretty sure we'll see more news coming in next week ;)
 
things are definitely looking better from an epidemiological point of view here on the balearics.

for the first time in months, no new covid cases have been reported here on ibiza in the last 24hrs. mind though yesterday was a bank holiday and only urgent tests were done, so tomorrow the picture might be a little different again. but even if so, in the bigger picture all numbers are pointing in the right direction and both menorca and formentera might soon be covid-free (they both only have single digit figure of active cases right now) and ibiza is finally getting into a better incidence level as well.

from an economical point of view things aren't looking great at all though and the fact that here on the island the entire hospitality is still closed and will be until mid march gives a desolate feel. so while we wait until hibernation is over, we need some good news:

  • vaccination is slowly but steadily progressing.
  • by the looks of it, a big chunk of businesses are planning to open up for the summer at the end of april or start of may. additions that have come in are the cala nova restaurants aiyanna (28th april) and its neighbour atzaro beach (29th april). I'm sure that in the coming few weeks we'll see announcements of restaurants, beach clubs and obviously also hotels popping up left, right and center.
  • all going well we should also get some club news this week still...or latest next. stay tuned ;)
 
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