Our Failure to Comply with “Stay-at-Home” Nears a Year

By Aurelio Pedroso

HAVANA TIMES – It seems that COVID-19 is gaining momentum, and these past twelve months confirm this, and it won’t stop until the entire population gains immunity.

Figures are growing at an alarming rate. Dr. Francisco Duran, the national director of Epidemiology, continues to repeat, every day, just how complex it is to keep the situation under control. He notes how infectious the disease is, as well as warning us calmly that we can win this unusual battle if we all do our part.

Two factors are particularly important. First of all, staying at home, which is what people have done the least, with the exception of some of the elderly.

Many people are outside, and they aren’t exactly going for a walk, but standing in long and never-ending food lines. The relevant authorities haven’t found a satisfactory solution for that yet.

Number two, the announcement that was repeated to death in the beginning, which has been accepted by the population in a very irresponsible way: Learning to live with the virus. In other words, if my neighbor gets it, it has nothing to do with me.

There are quite a few factors that have contributed to this, in spite of experts and government efforts. Some heads have had to spin and be replaced in one center, institution, province or another.

When we see the unpleasant one-year statistics on March 11th, maybe we’ll understand that not everything we do has been OK. February has seen new records in deaths, number of cases and hospital admissions ever since those three Italians arrived in the colonial city Trinidad.

No matter how much or little we can do, it will be the vaccine in any four of its forms, that will impose the order we need to be able to work on the long road of setting things straight in this country.

The most promising vaccine, in stage 3 of clinical trials, is Soberana 02, with just over 40,000 volunteers. Others will have to wait a good while. As to our other problems, the answers won’t come out of our certified labs, but out of ministries such as Economy, Labor, Agriculture, Finances and Prices, to name a few.

Read more from Aurelio Pedroso aquí en Havana Times.