14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 6 January 2022 — With 1,429 new positive cases for covid-19 reported this Thursday, Cuba exceeded one thousand infections registered in one day, a figure that the Ministry of Public Health had not reported since last October 25 when it reported 1,210 patients.
With the increase in cases — this Thursday there were 462 more than yesterday — the authorities, without giving many details, have outlined what would be a new protocol for the locally-related infected that involves the voluntary isolation of the sick at home.
“The protocols establish that all those who are vaccinated, the symptoms are generally almost none and the home confinement system must be strengthened,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said on Tuesday at a meeting where the behavior of the pandemic was analyzed. “We cannot count on the school buildings, the universities, the tourist facilities that we used to isolate at other times.”
“We must appeal for a responsible isolation in the homes and that each person knows how to take care of themselves in order to take care of their family and others,” added Marreño, who also insisted on maintaining other measures such as the use of a mask and avoiding crowds of people, but yes: “keeping the economy active” is a priority.
The provinces that reported the most cases this Thursday, according to health authorities, are Pinar del Río (251), Matanzas (166) and Camagüey (163). However, in others such as Havana, which last week registered fewer than 100 daily, an increase is already being seen in health centers.
“La Covadonga (Salvador Allende hospital in Havana) is already full with covid patients and they dedicated that hospital only for patients with the disease,” a medical source in the capital told 14ymedio.
Until December 31, the suspects were given an antigen test and were admitted, but given the increase in patients, says the same source, “isolation centers will not be enabled as in previous months and the authorities have opted for admission In the home”.
Faced with this new government policy, the health worker warned that “they are not doing PCR and the antigen tests are limited, they are only for pregnant women and children under 2 years of age. The established thing is to do tests through biosensors and in this case the results take three or four days and sometimes you don’t even get the results.”
The increase in daily and active cases is a response to the presence of the omicron variant in Cuba, where experts speak of the beginning of “a new wave of infections” with the increase in the incidence of the disease, but not of fatality.
However, president Miguel Díaz-Canel, during the meeting last Tuesday, emphasized that it will not act as in past months. “Now we must give importance to the home quarantine, but it has to be an adequate, precise, deep, efficient.”
Cuba currently has 3,803 confirmed active cases. Since the pandemic began, 970,567 patients with the disease have been diagnosed and 8,325 people have died, one of them in the last day.
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