Cuba Reports Covid-19 Cases Increased by 15% on Thursday
HAVANA TIMES – As Cuba tries to control the advance of Covid-19 cases in the country the health authorities reported that positive cases were up 15% on Thursday from the day before.
The figure is up 58% in the last 5 days from 170 to 269. Likewise, the number of “suspicious” cases is up 50% from 1010 to 1518. A total of 3241 persons are hospitalized up 20% from 2681 in the same period. Another 26,587 are currently being monitored at their homes.
The Ministry of Health reported 36 new positive cases on Thursday from 10 of Cuba’s 14 provinces as the spread is clearly taking place nationwide.
One of the biggest problems for people to abide by the voluntary stay-at-home recommendation for those at high risk, like pregnant women and the elderly, is that they lack food and hygiene products. To obtain them, they must wait in enormous lines, usually only buying one or two products at a time, and in small quantities. The same goes at pharmacies when any medicine arrives.
The government says it will start rationing most basic products through the neighborhood bodega stores but that doesn’t mean the quantity will be enough for everyone. Cuba imports an estimated 60-70% of its foodstuffs. If there were serious shortages in the months before Covid-19, under the current economic conditions the situation promises to be considerably worse.
The pangs of hunger are slowly going to increase. Even when times were relatively good with over four million tourists per year, Cuba struggled to supply the food chain with sufficient product with most of that which was on occasion available being imported. Incompetent management under the communist system where the Party faithful are rewarded with positions irrespective of their abilities, coupled with a supposed work force that simply doesn’t care, has led to economic constipation.
One fears for the future, as the Party faithful sit and produce meaningless plans, hold endless meetings and applaud those in power. Talk of rations is meaningless when the supply will not meet the required amounts. But heads down, keep on promoting platitudes and avoid considering reality.
This pandemic provides extreme hardships to third world countries. In most Western countries the population, as decreed by governments, is to stay at home, stay 2 meters away person to person, wash hands as frequently as possible, and if leaving home for necessities like groceries and medication to wear a mask.
We can all sympathize with the situation in Cuba as stated in the article. Waiting in a line, under the hot sun, for hours to buy, if available, some food and/or toiletries must be extremely difficult to bear. Washing hands is necessary requirement to fight against the virus; however, if one has to stand hours in a long line to purchase a few bars of soap or some sanitizer, would a person in a Western country do that? Unlikely.
Multiply that situation across a nation with a high population density and the final outcome will not be good as the statistics state.
One positive that Cuba has to fight this pandemic is a hot, humid climate. According to medical health officials and health scientists the COVID-19 virus does not survive well in tropical climates and prefers cold or cool and dry conditions. So, as the summer begins and the weather becomes very hot and humid in Cuba this may provide respite and help reduce COVID-19 cases. Let’s hope!!