Havana back on lockdown as coronavirus rebounds

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba on Saturday put Havana back on a strict lockdown after a rebound in cases of coronavirus, ordering restaurants, bars and swimming pools once again to close, stopping public transport and banning access to the beach.

Cuba, which in Latin America was cited as a rare success story for its handbook and containment of its coronavirus outbreak, had last month increased its tax restriction after cases became fewer than a handful per day.

But they have returned to April levels in the past two weeks, with the health ministry reporting 59 cases on Saturday, saying the situation could become “uncontrollable” if authorities do not act harshly.

“We are witnessing a new epidemiological outbreak that is endangering our entire population,” Cuban Public Health Minister José Angel Portal said during a daily briefing on coronavirus on Saturday.

Cuba’s free community – based health care system is credited, along with measures such as strict isolation of the sick and their contacts, allowing the number of cases to be kept below 2,900 with 88 deaths for a population of 11 million.

Authorities, however, have killed Cubans for leaving their protection after it was unlocked, and failed to physically distance or wear their face masks, which are mandatory in public spaces, and in large groups.

One of the last major events of local transfer was recovered after a religious meeting.

But many of the new cases – 41 of the 59 reported on Saturday – are also imported, perhaps from Venezuela. There is no open travel in Cuba due to the pandemic, so most returnees would probably come from the 20,000 health personnel stationed in Cuba’s leftist allies.

Anyone entering the country is required to be quarantined for 14 days in a state institution so that contamination from those cases is contained.

While the outbreak of Cuba is targeted at Havana, Portal said authorities need to carefully monitor the rest of the country given the large number of asymptomatic carriers and domestic travel that have occurred in the past month.