Cuba begins to control the epidemic with queues turned into a national concern | Society

Cuba has been seven consecutive days without registering deaths from coronavirus. And the number of infections has also decreased in the last week (13 cases were confirmed on Tuesday, on Monday, 6 and Sunday, 9, far from the average of 50 daily cases that were recorded last month). According to these official data, it seems that the epidemic is beginning to be under control on the island, where 1,900 patients and 79 deaths are reported since March 11, when the first case was detected. This is what the Government believes, which considers that the actions it has taken are giving results, although, it warns, to avoid a change in trend it will maintain all the social distancing measures adopted, including the closure of the borders to tourism until at least 30 of June. There will not be a return to normality “runaway”, said Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. The challenge now is the large queues that form in stores Due to the shortage of food and basic necessities, something that has no prospect of a solution because the country is going through a serious crisis that, foreseeably, will get worse.

The authorities’ strategy to confront covid-19 has combined vigorous actions such as the closure of borders (since April 2), the suppression of all public transport in cities, towns and between provinces, the closure of bars, restaurants and nightclubs, or the increase of police action on the streets to avoid violations of the provisions, with a battery of preventive sanitary measures –whose hard core are the massive investigations, house by house, to detect the sick–, in addition to appeal to self-control and people’s conscience to confine themselves at home and go out only to what is strictly necessary. Thus, a national quarantine has been avoided, something difficult to execute given the conditions in Cuba, where due to chronic shortages and rationing, people have to go out on the streets almost daily to get supplies.

From a medical and health point of view, Cuba has some resources –although reduced due to the crisis– who are envied by other countries in the area and that they have enabled him to deal effectively with the first blow of the epidemic. With 11 million inhabitants, the island has 95,000 doctors (9 out of every 1,000 Cubans), including 1,800 Intensive Care Specialists and 1,200 epidemiologists, in addition to 85,000 nurses and 58,000 technicians. About 150 hospitals and 450 polyclinics are part of the health network, although Cuba’s greatest strength in this crisis is its extensive and oiled primary care service, a muscle that, together with its well-known capacity for social control, allows practically to each home in search of possible sick people.

Nearly 25,000 medical students have been targeted for this goal and millions of people have been evaluated in their homes. This active and massive investigation, and the systematic follow-up of each chain of infection, is the mainstay in confronting the epidemic, as well as carrying out PCR diagnostic tests not only on those suspected of having the disease, but also taken at random between the population to detect infections. So far, a total of 87,000 samples have been processed on the island.

According Diaz-Canel, the epidemiological confrontation with covid-19 is working, and proof of this is the good results shown in the last fifteen days, with more patients discharged than confirmed positive cases. This will allow an eventual opening of the borders, although, he said, in a climate that will not be the same as that experienced prior to the pandemic. “The country cannot run wild now (…) it must be moving towards a normality that is not going to be as normal as before, because there are things that we have to maintain as rules of life for the future, and others that we must conceive in a way different”.

The issue today is to maintain the isolation measures so that there are no setbacks. Until now, when covid-19 outbreaks have been detected in communities, small towns, or neighborhoods of Havana and other cities, what has been done has been to tighten the isolation measures in those places and increase epidemiological surveillance to contain the focus.

Extreme measures have been avoided, such as the implementation of a mandatory quarantine of national scope, and the reason is simple: in many Cuban homes, people live daily and, due to the rampant scarcity, it is practically impossible to get enough supplies to have autonomy and endure stuck at home. The products that they take out in the stores are few and are sold “normados” –a small quantity per person–, and this causes large crowds. Buying a chicken, two cans of detergent or a kilo of flour can be an odyssey, and keeping the social distance after many hours of waiting is not easy, to the extent that “queue organizers” brigades have been created to maintain the discipline.

The authorities admit that, with the economy in hibernation, stopped tourism and the intensification of the US embargo, imports will decrease and shortages could increase. Avoiding queues, or minimizing them, so that they do not become dangerous sources of contagion, is today a matter of national priority.

Information about the coronavirus

–Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

– The coronavirus map: how cases grow day by day and country by country

– Questions and answers about coronavirus

– Guide to action against the disease

– If you have symptoms, these are the phones that have been enabled in every country in Latin America.

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