Surviving Coronavirus in the Cuban Jungle

By Safie M. Gonzalez

HAVANA TIMES – We’ve beaten our daily record of infections here in Cuba. I never thought we would have more than 500 cases in a day, but it’s happened. The State continues to bet everything on citizens exercizing common sense, and believe me, this is something the majority don’t have.

I go outside and it’s like I’m living in a horror movie, or worse yet, a war movie, where everybody takes to the battlefield and where a large percentage will die. But there’s a difference… warriors were fighting for a cause. It seems like nothing seems to matter to us Cubans anymore.

I won’t talk about other provinces because I live in Havana, and yes, the government has adopted measures such as shutting down schools, closing borders between provinces and public transport services only running until 9 PM. However, people go about their daily business as if nothing were going on. It’s like the news of the number of people infected and dead per day weren’t important for many.

People continue to crowd together in lines, without respecting the distance that has been repeated to death and established as necessary, and people even come to blows. I have seen many people without a mask on. But the thing that bothers me the most is seeing children being dragged by their parents down the street, on buses and even in lines. Some don’t even wear a mask.

Where are these parents’ common sense and sense of responsibility? Haven’t they understood the danger they are exposing their children to? Or the danger they are exposing their family members too? Some of whom may be older and are put in danger when these parents don’t respect established hygiene regulations?

Where are the police? Why aren’t police officers being reinforced in places where we know people crowd together? In lines at banks and in stores. What is happening to those, who, if we use our common sense and try to do things properly, to save lives more than anything else?

Talking about buses is like tallking about the deep jungle. The bus driver calls five people to come on and ten board, and some climb on top of others. I agree that public transport has always been bad, that everybody needs to get to work or wherever they need to go, but why don’t they regulate these measures? Why don’t they step up public transport services when citizens have to get to work?

I could write ten more pages, but there’s no solution unfortunately. It’s a chain, a vicious cycle we form part of, and unfortunately only a minority think with their heads. In the meantime, we have to keep eating, working and, more than anything else, try to live with COVID-19 in the middle of this jungle.

Read more from the dairy of Safei M. Gonzalez here.