14ymedio, Havana, 7 September 2020 — Not a week had passed since the start of school activities when the authorities decided to temporarily suspend teaching activities in schools in Ciego de Ávila and Pinar del Río due to outbreaks of Covid-19.
In the main municipality of the province of Ciego de Ávila, 75 of the 90 schools — of all kinds — have been affected, according to Bárbara Rodríguez Millán, provincial director of Education.
Four centers of the Orlando González Popular Council, from Majagua, which is in quarantine, also suspended teaching activities on 3 September.
The Provincial Defense Council of Ciego de Ávila decided this Saturday to take a step back and return to phase 1 of the recovery stage in the main municipality and to phase 2 in the other nine towns, due to an increase in positive cases in less than 15 days and that has brought a figure of 30 new infected.
On 1 September, classes had resumed in all the provinces except Havana, which faces the worst epidemiological situation on the island, after a six-month hiatus.
“The teaching collectives, deans and principal professors of the academic year will inform, through the established channels, both students and workers, how to maintain the educational teaching process in a blended or remote manner,” the official press reported this Saturday.
Teachers and workers over 60 years of age or with diseases that weaken their immune systems will “go to teleworking and/or distance work.” In addition, in the areas of economics and accounting, the general secretariat, human resources and essential staff of the faculties will continue to work “in person” at the University.
A similar situation is being experienced on the province of Pinar del Río which, after the confirmation last Friday of two new positive cases for COVID-19 in its main municipality, the Provincial Defense Council ordered the isolation of the contacts of these patients and the halting of the teaching activities in two schools.
The authorities explained that there are two “autochthonous cases” of which the source of infection is unknown.
“Taking into account that one of them has two children who study at the Tomás Orlando Díaz high school and at the Karl Marx mixed center, it was decided to isolate the teachers who have had contact with these children, to test them for Covid, although they may be asymptomatic,” informed Julio César Rodríguez Pimentel, president of the Defense Council of the province.
Pinar del Río accumulated 112 positive cases since last March with the data of last Thursday. At the moment, 17 confirmed cases are reported and with follow-up, five cases under study and 74 contacts, in addition 45 health workers who are in quarantine.
The Ministry of Health reported this Monday in its daily report of 43 new cases nationwide, for a cumulative total of 4,352 infections, since March, of which 102 died.
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