14ymedio, Havana, 28 December 2020 — In the last week, Cuba reported more than a thousand new cases of Covid-19, for a total of 1,121 patients since last Monday. Today’s report detailed 229 positives, the highest number of infections in a single day since last March, according to information published by the Ministry of Public Health.
Of the 229 confirmed cases, 88 were from positive contacts, 136 arrived infected from abroad and five had no specified source of infection. According to the Ministry of Health, of the total confirmed, 189 people (82.5%) were asymptomatic.
1,486 active cases are under medical surveillance, nine of them reported as critical and 10 in serious condition. In the last hours a 75-year-old Cuban citizen, resident in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, in Havana, who suffered from high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease, died from the virus.
The previous record was on December 23 with 217 positive cases, of which 101 were imported and 116 from local transmission, according to the Inventory statistical analysis project.
The sharp increase in cases of coronavirus originating in international travelers has led the Public Health authorities to announce this Monday a reduction in flights from the United States, Mexico, Panama, Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, starting on 1 January 2021.
Last week the government announced that it will require a negative PCR test for Covid-19 from all international travelers as of January 10. The Ministry of Health acknowleged that this measure was being taken due to the large number of imported cases detected with the reopening of the airports.
Recently, Public Health warned that it was preparing for a possible growth in the presence of the disease with the arrival of a greater number of travelers for the end of the year holidays.
The information from the Ministry contrasts with what was said in mid-November in a meeting where Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel was present and it was announced there should begin to be a gradual “decrease in the figures until reaching a plateau between approximately 200 and 500 active cases, to the end of year.”
As of December 28, Cuba has counted a total of 11,434 cases of Covid-19, and 143 people have died from the disease since the start of the pandemic, in a country of roughly 11 million people. All of the country’s provinces currently report active cases.
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