This Thursday, the Temporary Working Group for the control and prevention of COVID-19 detailed the new measures for the reinforcement of the hygienic-sanitary control in the municipality of Las Tunas.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- They will come into effect from Monday, March 29, and were already anticipated with those applied to transportation this week.
In the last 15 days, the capital municipality has an incidence rate of positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants of 40.4, an indicator that doubles the provincial index during that period, which is 20.3. Similarly, this territory concentrates 30 of the 37 foci of transmission. For this reason, the government authorities took a step forward in the measures for the prevention of contagion.
First, the suspension of transport services, both state and private, whose origin or destination was the municipality of Las Tunas was confirmed. The governing body specified that within the provincial capital the urban public services of routes 1, 6, 7 and that for reinforcement will remain; also the internal rural services of this municipality, such as those towards the towns of Bartle, Dormitorio, Río Blanco, Las Flores, and Mastrapa. Pedicabs, horse-drawn carriages, and other related forms of self-employment will also continue their operations.
The representatives of the Passenger Transport and General Cargo Company (CARDINAL) reiterated that workers in the health sector and others of vital importance to the economy will be guaranteed the requested transport by each of their respective organizations or companies.
From next Monday, the health control points will be activated to monitor the entrance and exit of the city in the communities of Veguita and El Mango and the exit to the municipality of Jobabo. In the case of Majibacoa, the existing control point will be reinforced. In the respective municipal governments, management positions will be established that will authorize some people to travel to and from Las Tunas for justified reasons.
The Temporary Group also agreed that the stay or circulation of people and vehicles in public places will be limited from 9:00 at night, without prejudice to activities such as Internet browsing in the Wi-Fi sites or the sale of basic food products whose delay in the sale would cause their decomposition. "It will continue, it was said, the closure of the circulation of the streets where outbreaks of COVID-19 remain active."
To reduce the mobility of people and avoid crowds, there will be more restrictions on benefits in prisons; although the religious institutions will maintain the services guaranteeing the distance between people and other hygienic measures.
To the provisions already in force for the service of bars, cafes, restaurants, and other commercial units, it is added that the closing time will be at 9:00 pm, except when they are selling basic food products.
The Caribe and Cimex chain stores will make food and toilet bags for sale in their units; and also will promote mobile sales to health personnel, companies, and selected organizations, always complying with the regulations established in the number of products. Both entities will extend the sale of high-demand modules to isolated places where there are no commercial units, prior coordination.
Concerning obituaries, the Temporary Working Group agreed that the time of the wake at the city's funeral home will be a maximum of two hours from receipt of the body, avoiding the crowding of people. Home service will be limited, and access to the cemetery will be allowed only for burials and exhumations.
At the same time, in the municipality of Las Tunas, the activity of a bodybuilding gym instructor will be restricted to half of its capacities. Likewise, the activities of the audio operator and operator of recreation equipment are temporarily and exceptionally suspended, as well as the decoration service, organization of birthdays, weddings and other festive activities.
At the proposal of the Public Health authorities, visits to patients admitted to hospital institutions will continue to be suspended; and the permanence of the same companion for the patient who needs it until the clinical discharge. In the same way, the largest number of specialty consultations will be taken to Primary Health Care, keeping in hospitals only those required due to their characteristics for the follow-up to the patients.
Only emergency or oncological surgeries will be performed at the hospitals Ernesto Guevara and Mártires de Las Tunas (pediatric), depending on the availability of resources; and the limitation of the number of companions for patients who attend outpatient consultations and emergencies services will continue, also promoting greater physical distancing in the waiting areas of healthcare institutions.
Despite the suspension of public transport to and from the capital municipality, the Temporary Group approved the strategy so that, together with CARDINAL, the return to their homes of people with medical discharge from provincial hospitals, who are residents in other municipalities and whose transfer does not require the use of ambulances, is guaranteed. Also, to ensure the transfer of patients from other municipalities whose medical consultations continue to take place in provincial institutions.
THE SCHOOL YEAR "MOVES" TO THE HOUSES
As previously reported, from March 29 to April 20, in the urban limit of the municipality of Las Tunas, face-to-face activities in General Education institutions will stop. The measure covers 83 centers of different types and levels of education, with an enrollment that exceeds 28 thousand students and more than five thousand workers.
The provincial director of Education clarified that in the rest of the municipalities the teaching activities of General Education will continue to be in person; and that childcare centers will continue to function, increasing the prevention measures; as well, the semi-boarding schools will provide non-teaching services for students whose relatives cannot take care of them at home.
The scheme for the sector in the capital municipality includes that the students who live in the city of Las Tunas will continue their academic activities through the programming broadcast by the Educativo channel. Only twelfth-grade students will attend classrooms. Those of the tenth and eleventh grades of the Luis Urquiza Jorge Vocational Pre-university Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE), but who reside in other municipalities, will be integrated into the pre-university institutes of their territories.
Those in Youth and Adult Education preparing for university entrance will join those in twelfth-grade at the Pre-university level. Students of pedagogical schools will also be integrated into the activities of practicing teachers and those derived from television classes, as well as the guidelines that their respective institutions required for each year of training.
All teachers and workers will remain linked with the institutions. The sports schools and the El Cucalambé professional art school, in the municipality of Las Tunas, will follow the same indications according to the educational level, except for students with a Professional Medium Level of Music who reside in other provinces or in other municipalities, who will remain at the school until the evaluations are completed.
All the University study modalities will continue through Distance Education during April. On-site teaching activities will only continue in the terminal years of the careers of the University of Medical Sciences, including the terminal year of the course for workers of the Bachelor of Nursing, which takes place once a week. Postgraduate students and scholarship recipients from other municipalities will continue their programs, and their transfer to the city of Las Tunas will be guaranteed.
Finally, the Temporary Working Group clarified that the self-employed who must suspend their activities to comply with these measures, owners or contracted workers, will be exempted from paying all taxes. Likewise, their respective monthly tax quotas will be reduced by 50 percent for private entrepreneurs who own gastronomic services that have to reduce their capacities.
The offer of tourist packages will be maintained as before, complying with the sanitary protocol established for phase three; only the pick-up site for vacationers changes, which will be moved to the Las Tunas Hotel.
