Cuban president says COVID-19 figures improving significantly

The statistics that are religiously reported every morning show a nation with remarkably low rates in the battle against COVID-19, although the battle for life continues.

The President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, spoke of the hopeful numbers at the meeting he leads every day with Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz.  The four cases that were reported, he said, is the lowest number of positives in a day after we reached the peak of the epidemic.  At other times we had five, six, but four is the lowest.

That does not mean, the president said, that we will continue to have that number, but it does make a difference with the number of positive cases per day that we have been experiencing since the last events that took place in Havana.

The week that concludes, he said, has had some singularities.  The number of positive cases increased by six compared to the previous week, that is, 71 against 65.  However, this Saturday showed a group of indicators that are worth noting: we have been eight days with higher discharges than positive cases; in the last 21 we have had to mourn the loss of only two people; and the 151 active cases that remain in the system today is the second lowest figure since we surpassed the peak of the epidemic.

"This is also beginning to mark a different moment and gives us the idea that we have the capacity to, in a short time, overcome the situation we have in Havana and Matanzas, and that these provinces can also move on to the recovery stage," he said.

On the other hand, the Head of State said, "we have to continue consolidating the results in the rest of the provinces that have entered the recovery phase and where it seems that a behavior that does not compromise a new transmission is being achieved."

Díaz-Canel considered that "we must continue to work intensely and rigorously.  I think that the level of research that is being carried out at the moment has been very successful."