Sancti Spíritus province declared in Phase 3 of COVID-19 recovery

The temporary working group for the prevention and control of the new coronavirus approved on Tuesday the transition of Sancti Spíritus province to phase three of the recovery stage of COVID-19.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz explained this decision responds to the behavior that the province has had of diagnosed cases by municipalities and their incidence rates during the last 14 days, a period it has complied with the corresponding health indicators for the referred phase.

As an additional element, he commented that for 11 consecutive days, the territory of Sancti Spiritus has complied with the sanitary indicators defined for the transition to the new normality.

Similarly, the Prime Minister explained that it was also decided to move to phase three the municipalities of Sancti Spíritus and Cabaiguán, which were in the phase of limited native transmission and Trinidad, previously in phase two. The rest of the municipalities of the province were in phase three since November 17.

Regarding the epidemiological situation of that province, where at the end of last week only seven positive cases were reported to COVID-19, six of them imported, the Minister of Public Health, José Angel Portal Miranda, assured that the territory is evolving to control the disease.

When analyzing the course of the epidemic in Cuba at the end of November -the second month where more positive cases have been confirmed since March-, the minister of Public Health said that the provinces of Pinar del Río, Havana, Ciego de Ávila, Santiago de Cuba and Sancti Spíritus, reported the highest incidence rate, with 77.8% of the cases diagnosed in the country.

By the end of November, the minister added, the general trend is an increase of imported cases, with  482, the highest figure in this category in more than eight months.

These patients, he said, have been the source of infection of 27.1% of the native cases diagnosed during that period and have been responsible for the resumption of transmission in the provinces of Artemisa, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín, and Santiago de Cuba.