Cuba reports highest number of active COVID-19 cases since start of pandemic

HAVANA - Cuba currently has 1,916 active COVID-19 cases, the highest since the outbreak of the epidemic in the country, its Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported Thursday.

"Although there has been an increase in the number of hospitalized patients, we have the capacity to provide institutional care to everyone who requires it according to established protocols," MINSAP's National Director of Epidemiology Francisco Duran said at a press conference.

Amid a new wave of cases, Duran said that there is an increase in domestic infections, accounting for 239 of the 314 newly registered cases, which makes the epidemiological situation more difficult.

"The disease's behavior is changing, but we will be able to control it as we did for a good part of 2020," he said.

Cuban authorities reinforced control measures in regions with the highest COVID-19 cases. In some provinces, local governments decreed quarantine measures in some communities.

Raul Guinovart, dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Havana, recently said that it is possible to lower the infection curve, but added that "everything will depend on whether control measures are fulfilled."

So far, the Caribbean nation has reported 13,479 COVID-19 cases, 11,390 recoveries and 148 deaths.