By Alejandra Garcia on April 5, 2022, from Havana
May 1 in the Plaza of the Revolution returns. photo: Bill Hackwell
This week, Cubans and travelers from around the world received a long-awaited announcement. Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, Cuba has relaxed its entry requirements for passengers traveling by air or sea.
This decision was possible thanks to the effectiveness of our local vaccines, which allowed authorities to control the health crisis in the country and provided us with one of the best epidemiological scenarios in Latin America.
Cases of COVID-19 and deaths from the disease has dropped exponentially. Children went back to school, workers returned to their workplaces, and airports opened their doors to tourism.
For weeks now, the number of infections has stayed near 500 cases per day. The Omicron variant seems to have been controlled in the country as more than 89 percent of the Cuban population has been fully vaccinated against the virus.
This is why, from now on, travelers will not need to show a negative COVID-19 test performed 72 hours before arriving on the Caribbean island.
Likewise, authorities will not require a vaccination passport. Instead, they will order random testing for the disease according to the number of flights, the entry of vessels, and the epidemiological risk posed by the travelers’ country of origin.
If any of these random tests come back positive, health officials will proceed according to the protocols approved to get COVID-19 under control.
However, this relaxation does not imply that the country will lower its guard. We will maintain other measures at all entries, such as social distancing and hand and surface disinfection.
We will also keep the mandatory use of masks at airports, public places, and inside establishments.
The news is encouraging, especially when May Day is approaching, an event that will be attended by millions of Cubans and friends of the island from multiple latitudes. We will march again after a two-year pause imposed by the pandemic.
Little by little, COVID-19 will become only a memory of anguish and pain. Today, we are a little further away from those uncertain days when we lost friends, neighbors, and relatives. Each step we take towards a new normality reminds us that this is possible thanks to the efforts of the scientific community and local and national authorities.
There was never a lack of oxygen and medicines for those COVID-19 patients who needed them. This is an easy thing to say, but it is the result of the efforts of many. When cities like Matanzas was suffering from the rise of the disease, the whole country mobilized to raise resources and goods for those affected.
We have had months of little sleep, many sacrifices and we will never be able to thank our country’s doctors enough for saving lives in Cuba and elsewhere.
Today, the fact that a PCR is not necessary to enter the country means that Cuba achieved the impossible, as always, despite the lack of resources, the shortage of supplies, and the smear campaigns that hit the country in the last two years. We made it once again and will be rewarded by marching with our communities and our many friends from all over the world in the Plaza of the Revolution on May 1.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano-English