COVID update: Cuba readies more hospital beds due to spike in cases

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 4 (ACN) The fact that more beds are being prepared for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS-19 is frightening news, but it also means that the conditions to solve this third outbreak of the pandemic are growing in effectiveness.

The epidemic may be subsiding. Or maybe not. National and territorial authorities, however, continue to increase hospital and isolation center capacities to promptly attend to the sick and suspects.

Havana, the province that ranks second in the incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants, reorganized its capacities in isolation centers and their respective insurances, while emphasizing the timeliness of admissions based on an accurate and rapid evaluation of cases, informed Governor Reinaldo Garcia Zapata.

With the capacities recovered in the isolation facilities, plus those being prepared at the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI), the number of beds for suspected cases will increase to around 1,000, he said.

In Guantánamo, the territory with the highest incidence rate of COVID-19 in the past 15 days (257.30 cases per 100,000 inhabitants), a thorough review is being carried out in isolation centers and hospital facilities to increase capacities, said Emilio Matos Mosqueda, governor of the province. There are already some 3,200 beds to attend to the sick and their contacts.

Santiago de Cuba is working in the same direction, according to its governor, Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, at the meeting held on Wednesday, via videoconference, of the main authorities of the country's provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, with the Government's Temporary Working Group for the fight against COVID-19, led by the Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel.

José Ángel Portal Miranda, Minister of Public Health, informed that at the close of Tuesday, February 2, 12,858 patients, including 12,676 Cubans and 182 foreigners, remained in the country for attention and surveillance by COVID-19.

There are 4,161 people in hospitals; 2,974 in centers for confirmed asymptomatic patients; 1,894 in centers for lower risk suspects; 3,515 in centers for contacts; and 293 in isolation centers for travelers.

Intensive care was provided to 58 confirmed patients, 33 of whom were critical and 25 serious. For COVID-19, on February 2, 17,076 samples were studied in the country's 18 laboratories, with 893 positive samples (5.2 percent).

Cuba accumulates 1,940,006 PCR samples and 29,529 positive (1.52 percent). Of those who have fallen ill, 5,563 (19 percent) remain active; 5,505 (98.9 percent) were with stable clinical evolution. On Tuesday, 773 were discharged, said Portal Miranda.

To date, 220 deaths have been reported (two during the day), two evacuated, 50 returned to their countries and 23,694 patients recovered (80.2 percent). Since the beginning of the epidemic, 734 confirmed patients have been admitted to acute care services, including 200 critically ill and 534 seriously ill.

Since March 11, 2020 to date, 3,075 pediatric-aged cases have been diagnosed. A total of 80.6 percent recovered and 595 are active today, but with favorable evolution. A total of 237 pregnant women have been confirmed with the disease; 85.6 percent recovered and 34 remain active, also with favorable evolution.