Cuba reports new record number of daily covid cases (April 22)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Cuba once again surpassed the absolute maximum number of daily cases of covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic by confirming 1,207 positive cases on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap).

This is the second time in less than a week that the total number of infections has broken the record after the 1,183 reported on Tuesday.

The Caribbean country has accumulated 97,967 positive cases and 559 deaths, 12 of them in the last day.

Today’s new cases, among which 24 are imported, were detected from 21,830 tests.

There are 23,393 people hospitalized in Cuban hospitals: 5,302 active cases – 27 critical and 43 severe – with suspected symptoms and the rest under epidemiological surveillance.

By provinces, Havana registered 681 new cases -one of the highest figures reported by the capital in the whole pandemic-, followed by western Matanzas and eastern Granma with 105 and 82, respectively.

The capital has the highest incidence rate of the disease in Cuba in the last fifteen days, with 382.6 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

These indicators made it once again the epicenter of the pandemic, despite maintaining in force measures such as a night curfew and the closure of schools, restaurants, bars, and beaches, among others.

Shortages resulting from the economic crisis force people to take to the streets and stand in long lines to buy food and other basic products, which complicates the containment of transmission.

Cuba is developing five vaccine candidates against the coronavirus, two of which -Soberana 02 and Abdala- are in the third and final phase of clinical trials to evaluate their efficacy.

Simultaneously, “controlled intervention studies” have been launched in Havana and the east to massively administer these two formulas, including 1.7 million people in the capital.

These drugs do not yet have the authorization for emergency use or registration, a matter which the authorities expect to achieve in June based on the preliminary results of the last stage of tests of Soberana 02 and Abdala.

The Cuban government has not acquired vaccines in the international market. It is not part of the Covax Mechanism created under the World Health Organization (WHO) auspices to favor equitable access to immunization in middle and low-income nations.