14ymedio, Roma Díaz, Santa Marta (Cárdenas), 14 September 2020 — The streets of Santa Marta, a few kilometers from the tourist center of Varadero, have been deserted since the quarantine was decreed on August 27 after 58 days without a single positive case for Covid-19.
Despite the fact that the governor of Matanzas, Mario Sabines Lorenzo, reported that the measure may be short-lived in the town of some 15,000 inhabitants, the facts indicate that, as we say in Cuba, “la bola pica y se extiende” (i.e. it’s complicated… and it’s not over). More and more infected people come to light, each with dozens of contacts. According to an anonymous source from the Civil Defense, the last case detected had about 130 contacts.
However, access to this town, which belongs to the municipality of Cárdenas, is not limited by very strict measures. A public health worker accompanied by a policeman is stationed at the entrance, and those from other places are only required to give their names and have their temperatures taken.
Due to the closure of all shops and food service establishments, the residents of Santa Marta have been supplied by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), which arrange a packet with basic necessities at a price of 11.50 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) (roughly a week’s wages).
Regarding the beginning of the school year, the authorities reported that everything will depend on how the epidemiological situation in the municipality evolves.
In other areas of Cárdenas, where some those infected in the local transmission event reside — a contagion that originated in the TRD store on Libertad Street, in Santa Marta — a modified quarantine is also in force.
According to the deputy director of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the province, Amancio Martínez Morejón, approximately 431 patient contacts of confirmed and suspected cases are currently in isolation.
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