Since the Chinese city of Wuhan shook the planet with the presence of SARS-Co-V-2, no one sleeps peacefully. Its global expansion and its death toll over the days led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a global pandemic on March 11. Cuba had to be alert.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- The country began to prepare. Cubans in their daily conversations commented on the matter with uneasiness and logical regret. However, it did not seem that it was something that happened to us, especially when the flu, asthma and allergies are recurrent diagnoses in the ailments of the population. Previous epidemics such as dengue and influenza were controlled.

But the new coronavirus arrived.

FAMILIES SAY

Without panic in the eyes and in a calm voice, mothers and students told 26 Digital how they cope with the Covid-19 phenomenon. The interviewees let this reporter note their sense of perception about the pandemic, which less than a month of it confirmation, continues its deadly expansion and is already reaching the black continent, where alerts are raising tones for malnutrition and weak health systems.

With a totally different panorama and the daily inconveniences generated by the economic affections we are experiencing, the opinions corroborated the citizen security that reigns in the Balcony of Eastern Cuba. Concerned, aware and attentive to the informative spaces, this is how these people from Las Tunas said to be.

Near the Rafael Martínez Martínez semi-boarding school, in this city, we found Tania Leonardo Merino, mother of two pioneers who are studying the first and sixth grades in that center. She told us: “It is a serious problem that is why we must take all the precautionary measures that are constantly being indicated to us and go to the doctor for any symptom of a cold, because in self-medicating or underestimating any signal there may be a danger.

“At school, they give talks to parents and we see a specific concern since the country began preparing to face the coronavirus. It is also important to avoid crowds and very effusive greetings. It is to assume this with discipline and responsibility and here I think that still, in the street and the queues, for example, you have to be more aware,” concluded this worker from the Ministry of the Interior in the capital municipality.

The doctor in Stomatology Dafne Mancebo Rodríguez has her little Lian Rafael in the Futuros Constructores childcare center. In this regard, he commented: “Hygiene and compliance with all the guidelines issued by the Public Health System are essential. I think it is vital that mothers do not bring children with a cold or any sign of illness. If in the institutions they do what is directed, they will not accept them. The right thing to do is to take them to the Doctor's office and the polyclinics. There, it is well known what to do with each case. Let's remember that Covid-19 can be deadly, and preventing it is the only way to avoid such complications."

Darvin Manuel Rodríguez studies the Automation specialty at the Simón Bolívar Polytechnic. He told us, they are required to wash their hands before entering the dining room and also when they reach the center. However, he recognized that many students have a "normal" cold and try to hide it, because they do not have a cough or fever. In the neighborhood is where you also see more. He lives in a family building at the Santos district.

For the housewife and Grandmother Julia la O Zayas, safety and trust in Cuban health, without taking away the right concern about the rapid contamination of the virus, is a guarantee of life. It is unity and no one breaches what's oriented that will allow us to be calm. We are properly informed, obeying and taking care of ourselves. That's the right thing to do. If you have a cold, avoid going out on the street if you don't have to. This isn't a game."

The day to day is still marked by that social indiscipline that does not finish being eliminated from the public environment: the crowding in the queues. That battle for citizen order must be fought with the same thrust as the new coronavirus. It may be the inevitable source of contagion. It is time to act instead talk.