High transmission of COVID-19

There are no longer doubts; the COVID-19 transmission has increased its speed outside the capital of the eastern province of Las Tunas. This is demonstrated by the statistics released by the Provincial Directorate of Public Health during the daily contacts of the Temporary Government Group for the confrontation and prevention of the disease.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- If until the end of August the incidence rate of positive autochthonous cases to SARS-CoV-2 per 100 thousand inhabitants of the municipality of Las Tunas far exceeded that of the rest seven municipalities, it rotated 180 degrees in September. For the first 19 days of this month, "Amancio", Jobabo, Manatí, "Colombia", Majibacoa, and Puerto Padre, in that order, reach rates higher than that of the capital.
This reality is also confirmed by reviewing the positivity percentages of the performed antigen tests.

Logically, due to its larger population, a higher number of these examinations is carried out daily in Las Tunas city, which makes it possible to identify the suspects. However, only this Sunday, for example, 21 percent of the studied patients through this test there were positive, the lowest of all registered in the other municipalities.

Similar behavior was observed in the SUMA tests, among which the percentage of positives residing in the provincial capital was also the lowest. Consequently, the number of occupied hospital beds has risen in healthcare units outside the city of Las Tunas, which already represent more than half of all available in these institutions.

In contrast, in the capital municipality, more than half of its population has already completed the vaccination cycle with “Abdala;” something that the rest of the territories is still far from achieving since, in Puerto Padre, which places second, only six percent of its inhabitants have received the three doses.

During this week, the local authorities have paid special attention to several aspects that arouse pejorative opinions about the quality of the confrontation with the pandemic; in particular, the persistent problems with medical care at the Dr. Ernesto Guevara Hospital, in the city of Las Tunas, and 14 de Junio, in Jobabo; as well as in the Romárico Oro polyclinic, in Puerto Padre.

They also took action on the matter after complaints about the delays in the transfer of discharged patients, emphatically, at the Guillermo Domínguez Hospital, in so-called Blue Village; and the delays in the information on the results of PCR tests detected in the “14 de Junio.” Agile management of medical discharges is a priority issue, as it contributes to reducing congestion in hospitals, governor Jaime Chiang Vega stressed.

The province began the week with an incidence rate of 1,444.6 autochthonous positives per 100,000 inhabitants, a figure that keeps it in the high-risk stratum. As a daily average, 514.1 positives have been reported in the last 15 days.

COVID-19 incidence rate increases