Mayabeque, Cuba: Throughout the beginning of the pandemic, Cuba maintained very low figures for the prevalence of the new coronavirus. However, in the last month of June and so far in July the statistics of the largest of the Antilles indicate that our country has ceased to be an exception compared to the world.
According to the Director of Health Surveillance and the Ministerial Directorate Center of the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap), Lorenzo Somarriba López, currently three factors influence a considerable increase in cases throughout the national territory: the dispersion of important strains such as Delta; the low perception of risk in some sectors of the population; the reduction of the levels of demand by the authorities to enforce the established measures and protocols.
This phenomenon also affects other countries in the region that, during the first year since the start of the pandemic, had very low prevalence numbers of the virus in their territories.
The specialist also explained that the Ministerial Direction Center of the Minsap collects and analyzes the world situation daily through the data offered by the Worldometer platform, a reference website that provides estimates and statistics in real time on the behavior of the pandemic in each of the countries of the world.
As for the total number of active cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the Antillean nation was ranked 77th until Sunday, July 11, with 238,491 patients infected with the disease; while in total deaths, it climbed to 98th place, with 1,537 deaths from complications related to SARS-COV-2.
Of the total number of active cases, the national territory counted 32,144, below territories with a similar population in the region such as the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Bolivia. But last week the number of patients per million inhabitants placed our archipelago in the 12th position in the world, above nations such as Argentina, Spain, Panama and Brazil.
The director of Health Surveillance, stressed that, despite the regrettable increase in deaths due to the epidemic, the mortality of Cuba in relation to the world remains at very low levels with 0.64 percent of deaths compared to the total number of patients, against 2.16 percent in the world and 2.62 percent in the Americas. Similarly, with 186 total deaths and 14 per million inhabitants, in the last week the country ranked 32nd in both indicators.
“Although the fatality is low, the current number of deaths hurts us,” said the Minister of Public Health, Dr. José Angel Portal Miranda, also said that European countries and Israel that maintained a high control of the pandemic and high percentages of vaccination express higher numbers of infections and deaths, which shows the magnitude of the virus in the world.
Last week Cuba marked its record of daily infections, active cases and patients in intensive care rooms since the beginning of the pandemic, which has set off alarms, as well as the establishment of greater measures to control the behavior of this disease in the national territory. Calling for collective and individual responsibility is increasingly necessary. Complying with the established measures is everyone’s job.
