The South African variant of the new coronavirus has arrived in Cuba.
“An asymptomatic traveler was detected through port and airport surveillance,” said Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine during an apparition Friday. Although the case was “imported”, Guzmán did not rule out the possibility that the variant was already circulating locally.
Both Guzmán and the Director of Epidemiology, Francisco Durán, denied that the outbreak of the first weeks of the year was related to the South African variant and attributed this to the fact that the population does not adhere to the health protocol.
Cuba reached 20,060 cases – 530 registered on Thursday – and of them 188 dead.
Cuba, which gained relative control over the virus last year with entire provinces not reporting cases in more than 100 days, began a de-escalation of restrictions with the authorization in November of commercial flights for the arrival of tourists and Cubans flying in stay abroad. The protocol included conducting on-arrival and quarantine tests on travelers, but the increase in cases tightened restrictions, restricted countries of origin and required a negative test for boarding.
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Currently there are areas that have closed their schools again, circulation restrictions and closure of some economic activities. The use of the chin strap and social distance are mandatory.
Durán said that the country from which most arrivals with passengers who were sick with COVID-19 were the United States, which is home to the largest community of Cuban expatriates.
The recent variants of the virus that showed up in the UK, South Africa and Brazil are not necessarily more deadly, Guzmán and Durán agreed, but they seem to spread more easily and scientists said they will therefore lead to more cases. deaths and hospitalizations.
In addition, mutations can ultimately lead to a reduction in the capacity of vaccines as they are being developed to date.
Cuba started testing this week by immunizing about 900 people – expected to reach 150,000 in the coming weeks – as part of trials with its candidate vaccine Sovereign 02, created by its own laboratories.