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More than 40 transmission sources were faced simultaneously in various municipalities

It is convenient to open the agenda to record the relevant notes that the first month of 2021 leaves in the confrontation with the new coronavirus pandemic in Las Tunas, which is passing through an epidemic rebound.

HIGH FIGURES ALSO IN LAS TUNAS

National data send an unequivocal message: January was the worst month of the COVID-19 pandemic for Cuba, as three thousand new cases were confirmed, more than all those detected since the initial positive appeared in the country, on March 11, 2020. Analysts warned that the moving average in the daily positivity rate in the tests, an average of seven days, passed five percent. That, they say, had only happened on specific days, which clearly indicates the high levels of viral activity.

Meanwhile, in Las Tunas the figures are proportionally alarming, even being the territory with the lowest rate of autochthonous cases per 100,000 inhabitants among its peers in the rest of the Archipelago. In January, the Balcón del Oriente Cubano (Balcony of Eastern Cuba) equaled the record for the total number of cases implanted in December (107) and approached the mark of those diagnosed for one day, although this mark (18) is still located on December 23.

But what would perhaps place the opening month of 2021 on a sharper step with respect to its predecessor is the palpable tension experienced by the Las Tunas Health System. More than 40 transmission sources were faced simultaneously in various municipalities, something not seen so far.

The advent of the new year here was equally consistent with the national trend that the largest number of confirmed cases were indigenous, thus denoting the intensity of transmission within the nation. In fact, the negative repercussions of January are still felt in early February. Take as a reference February 2nd, when there was a worrying number of new cases: eight. Taking into account the time between infection, the performance of the PCR and the processing of the result, it is possible to infer that there are patients who acquired the virus in January.

PHASES AND PERCEPTION OF RISK

If at the beginning of the year most of the country tried to stabilize the so-called new post-COVID-19 normality, 33 days later only three provinces, Sancti Spíritus, Granma and Las Tunas, retained that status. The rest had levels of transmission and dispersion of the new positives that forced the authorities to re-establish phases that imply much more severe restriction measures.

Even Las Tunas, on at least a couple of occasions, was shown a kind of "yellow card" by the National Temporary Working Group, placing it on the threshold of explicit setback. Precisely to avoid this, the Government did not tremble here to indicate, in the middle of the month, typical guidelines of more severe stages such as the restriction of transport and non-essential services; together with the reestablishment of checkpoints in the municipalities with the worst epidemiological situation: Las Tunas and Puerto Padre, without forgetting other steps to create hospital capacities and isolation centers.

LAST INSTANCE: LIABILITY

“The fact that more than 80 percent of the cases in the land of Vicente García González have been reported in the new normal shows that sanitary protection measures have not been complied with,” Diego Álvarez Dopazo, director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, recently warned.

On his part, Aldo Cortés, deputy director of the same institution, emphasized the imperative of transforming lifestyles, respecting what is indicated about the mandatory use of the facemask in public spaces, maintaining physical distance; avoid closed or poorly ventilated areas and, if possible, crowds; always sanitizing hands and surfaces.

With fairness, from the different spaces for the exchange of opinions, the people demand more severity with the offenders. But it doesn't take an overly complex exercise of thought to realize that police officers and inspectors cannot be everywhere at the same time. So, ultimately, individual and family responsibility in complying with the indicated health guidelines will always determine.

Otherwise, perhaps, the protocol that initially established the isolation of international travelers in their homes would not have failed. So now, once again, the State must assume the temporary confinement of Cuban citizens and foreigners arriving from abroad. It also does not help, for example, that the Educational System has reduced the stay of students in educational centers if later infants or adolescents wander the streets.

Mathematical models predict that the number of cases will continue to grow in the Archipelago. After the aforementioned control actions on international travelers, attention gradually returns to those who arrive from provinces with higher levels of transmission. There is the main monitoring point from Primary Care, warned Dr. Viviana Gutiérrez Rodríguez, provincial director of Health. It is worth reflecting on what would happen to an economy in trouble like ours if once again the public treasury, with repressed income, had to bear the costs of the isolation of national travelers, as it happened in 2020.

Observing what happened in provinces such as Guantánamo, which is experiencing its worst pandemic moment, and others such as Ciego de Ávila, which for the second time regressed to the autochthonous transmission phase, are the best proofs of how fine is the line between the new normal and to be back to a more severe epidemiological panorama, with all the economic, social and, even, psychological implications that something like this would have on citizenship. Now more than ever, all care is little.

Evolution of the pandemic in Las Tunas, by months