Las Tunas left September behind with a double spread: a worrying one, the SARS-CoV-2; and another hopeful; anti-COVID-19 vaccines.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- In the ninth month of the year, Las Tunas surpassed the barrier of 13,000 autochthonous positives cases, totaling 3,340 more than in the previous one. However, it should be noted that the growth rate concerning August (0.3) was the lowest seen in the current year.

That means that the increase persisted, yes, but the pace continued to slow down. So much so that, if from August to September that rate had been similar to that between July and August, then we would have had 4,700 more patients than the 13,468 autochthonous reported. On the other hand, the imported positives remained at minimal figures.

THE EPICENTER CHANGED

At the time of notification, the worst day in Las Tunas in the past month would be September 9 (867 cases). However, the true peak of infections would have occurred almost a week earlier, on the 3rd, when more than a thousand people from Las Tunas who were sampled for PCR studies tested positive later.

That in September this eastern Cuban province surpassed the record for the most positives reported in a month is perhaps not the most novel, because that had been the trend of the pandemic here so far in 2021. What is remarkable is that its epicenter is no longer the Open Doors City (the capital municipality) that has just celebrated its 225th anniversary.

If in August six out of 10 notified positives resided in Las Tunas municipality; in September, that figure drop to less than three out of 10. For the first time in 2021, its upward trend in the incidence rate of confirmed natives per 100 thousand of its inhabitants stopped from one month to another; although it is not idle to note that this decline began to be noticed from the last two weeks of August.

The ninth month of the year kept a disastrous loot in deceased people by COVID-19 since it added more than half of all those registered. The spread of the pandemic was also expressed in that sad category because, while the municipality of Las Tunas saw a fall compared to August, the opposite occurred in the rest of the demarcations, whose figures are more alarming compared to previous months. In Puerto Padre, "Jesús Menéndez," and Manatí, the deceased doubled; in "Amancio", even more.

MORE SAVING VACCINES

In September, "Abdala," Soberna 02, Soberana Plus, and even the Chinese Sinopharm went on a trip to all the ends of the “Vicente García’s land.” From one month to the next, the number of inhabitants who have received at least one dose of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine multiplied by two, and the benefited age groups grew.

At the end of August, one in three residents had received at least a first dose of “Abdala;” at the end of September, two out of every three were protected also with “the battery of the Soberanas” (02 and Plus) that came from the ingenuity of the scientists of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines, and even with the donated injectable by the People's Republic of China.

In this aspect, the municipality of Las Tunas is ahead, because immunization began much earlier so that by the end of September more than half of its inhabitants had completed their vaccination schedule, something that only about 25 percent of those of Puerto Padre and "Colombia" have managed to do. This increase in vaccination has also been due to extending, especially to age groups that have not been intervened so far, such as people between 2 and 18 years of age, allergic adults, and convalescents.

REASONS FOR CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM

Experts and government authorities agree that the frank improvement in the municipality of Las Tunas stems from the combined effect of confinement and vaccination. Although, as the governor of the province, Jaime Ernesto Chiang Vega said, "we cannot abandon the hygiene and physical distancing measures."

"We need to go to the gradual reactivation of the economy," he said, referring to some services that have been re-established in the provincial capital, such as Civil Registry procedures, Housing, payments for others such as communications and electricity, or reservation in some restaurants. Each new opening, he clarified, must be certified by the health authorities.

“Prevention work in communities is crucial to cut transmission from the grassroots; detecting cases in time and isolating them,” Manuel Pérez Gallego, first secretary of the Cuban Communist Party in the province, said when speaking about what is done in the territories whose situation has worsened: Manatí, Puerto Padre, “Jesús Menéndez” and “Amancio.” There, he insisted, several mistakes were made that have been corrected, always listening to the opinions of the population. The reorganization of respiratory infection consultations and sanitary transport, which were so effective in the Capital of Cuban Sculpture, and which is now being applied in the rest of the municipalities, was born from this ear for the people's opinion.

It is to be expected that in October, and as early as in its first two weeks, we will see an even greater increase in the number of inhabitants with a complete vaccination schedule, since adults over 19 years of age in seven municipalities, as well as 18-year-olds throughout the province, will begin to receive their third doses of Abdala. This does not include allergy sufferers and convalescents, especially the latter, who need a single dose of Soberana Plus to complete the process more quickly, with the consequent positive impact on the statistics.

It is increasingly clear that the sooner we win this silent war that has literally taken thousands of our compatriots, the more energy we will be able to use to prevail against the other unconventional war that our Revolution is facing right now.