Thousands in isolation at Christmas. | Ultima Hora

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Around 5,000 people in the Balearic Islands will spend Christmas in isolation because of Covid-19, according to the latest information from IB-Salut.

4,851 residents are currently in quarantine either because they’re infected or because they’ve been in contact with someone who has the virus.

Some of those people will be released from isolation this week, but Dr Javier Arranz, Spokesperson for the Regional Committee on Infectious Diseases is forecasting a rise in infections in the coming days, which means many more people could find themselves in quarantine throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays.

4,510 people are currently in isolation in Mallorca; 189 in Minorca, 102 in Ibiza and 50 in Formentera and these figures do not include people who are hospitalised with coronavirus.

Contacts

"Around 4.57 contacts are tracked from each person who tests positive for Covid-19 and 16% of those tracked per case also test positive for the virus,” according to IB-Salut.

In the last week 1,062 of the contacts identified by trackers tested positive for coronavirus.

Since the beginning of the pandemic 23,606 people have been forced to isolate in Mallorca; 917 in Minorca; 3,673 in Ibiza and 177 in Formentera.

Of the 74,741 close contacts identified and analysed, 6,483 had symptoms, 68,266 were asymptomatic and 12,515 tested positive.