Havana, August 25.- The President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, called for work to be done as soon as possible to repair the damage caused by Tropical Storm Laura in the country in order to prevent these effects to which we are adding versus other meteorological events are behind schedule.
Heading a session of the Economic and Social Panel of the National Defense Council, which assessed the preliminary damage in the provinces from Mayabeque to Guantánamo and the western territories’ preparations for the attacks with governors and ministers, the head of state defined that the philosophy is to put an end to this damage so that it no longer counts and we can repair it immediately, as we did with the Havana tornado.
We’re resolving them, he said, and we’re continuing to work on the strategy we have to recover from other damages “that these don’t persist in time, take hold and add to the account.”
There are conditions for this, the President assured, “because the resources are in most territories”. The Ministry of Economy and Planning will decide on the other necessary issues, which is necessary in this situation, he specified.
After receiving a statement from the authorities of each of the eastern and central provinces, as well as Matanzas and Mayabeque, Díaz-Canel believed that “so far we have not had the impact that we expected, particularly given the scope of the proposals all involved.” the intense rainfall, also because the storm moved further south than had been predicted in the first models.
But there are impacts that we must watch out for, especially in the electrical sector, which cause us a lot of inconvenience, because to the extent that we are delaying with the replacement, the water supply and a whole range of services are also affected, he pointed out there.
In some quick reports referred to by the President of the Republic, more than a thousand households have been affected. It was small compared to other events, he guessed, but they needed to be recovered immediately, on top of all the landslides taking longer.
Forever less has happened than we expected, he commented, and it has brought a little water to some parts of the country that have been facing a complex situation due to the drought.
The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and attended by the Vice-President of the Republic, Salvador Valdés Mesa, also reviewed the measures taken by the provinces of Havana, Artemisa and Pinar del Río, as well as the Isla de la Juventud Special Municipality to help the population and to protect economic resources.
According to the head of the National Civil Protection Staff, Division General Ramón Pardo Guerra, the impact is concentrated on the house, mainly on its roofs; on power lines with more than 360 broken circuits across the country; and in agriculture, particularly in banana plantations in the east of the island.
Sectors such as transport, industry, telecommunications, domestic trade and tourism suffered no major damage. On the other hand, confirmed the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, the rainfalls were very positive and it was possible to recover 12% of the monthly average, with the highest accumulated in Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo.
It’s time to tighten control measures
This Monday afternoon, in the midst of the meteorological situation that Cuba was going through, the Temporary Working Group to Combat the Epidemic, headed by the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, met, as every afternoon before, to address the urgency of the new outbreak of Covid- 19 to contain further.
The Head of State referred to the spread and increase in cases of SARS-CoV-2 in Havana, which reached 2,179 this Monday since last March; 32 of them on the last day. The country’s capital is monitoring 197 active outbreaks in its 15 communities and six cases of local transmission of the disease.
If we continue like this, the President warned, we will not be able to control the situation and we will go backwards in what we have achieved. We must take more far-reaching measures in the capital, he indicated, to see if, in a few days, with more efficient and rigorous closures, we can contain the transmission of the disease.
One has the perception, he said, that there are places where hygiene measures and risk perception have been cracked. “We don’t have time to make any more calls. We have already asked people for the necessary social responsibility, we have given them all the arguments.” Control measures, physical isolation and mobility in Havana need to be intensified, he said.
Díaz-Canel pointed out that “tough action is taken against those who take off their masks, who oppose the measures taken because they are irresponsible people who contaminate, infect and endanger the rest of the population”.
Regarding these details, this Tuesday a working group led by the prime minister and made up of the capital’s authorities and several ministers will evaluate new measures for the city to contain the contagion faster.
Regarding the situation in Havana, the Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, reported on the decision to open a new transmission event at the La Castellana Psychopedagogical Center, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, where 15 cases have been confirmed, 12 patients and three workers . A PCR test was carried out on the entire population to be studied and the 44 asymptomatic patients of the facility were isolated at the Julio Trigo Hospital.
At the same time, in Havana, the transmission events generated in Villa Mégano, in the municipality of Habana del Este, were closed; and in Santa Felicia, corresponding to Marianao.
In addition to the capital, the provinces of Pinar del Río, which maintains an open event with 29 cases on La Palma, reported at the meeting about their epidemiological situation; Artemisa with Bauta, Baracoa and Mariel also in quarantine; and the Isle of Youth, which has had no cases of Covid-19 for 113 days.
A total of 3,717 patients have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus in Cuba so far, of which 545 remain active and are hospitalized, 96.1% of them have stable clinical development. In the intensive care units, two patients remain in critical condition and 19 seriously ill. Those recovered now reach the figure of 3,079, 82.8% of the total. (Cuba Presidency) (Photo: Revolution Studies)
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