Cuba’s Retail and Transport Sector Goes Into ‘Shutdown’

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The number of Covid-19 cases in Cuba continues to rise. The long queues outside stores are considered one of the main obstacles to preventing new infections.

Now the government has reacted with new measures affecting the retail and transport sectors. Since Friday, both sectors have switched to a kind of emergency operation, which should drastically reduce contact in public places.

By April 12th, a total of 669 people in Cuba had tested positive for the novel coronavirus; 18 have died as a result of the virus, and 92 have recovered. 2,302 patients were admitted to hospitals for clinical epidemiological surveillance.

A further 8,348 people are being monitored at home by primary healthcare workers. The number of PCR tests carried out has increased over the past week to an average of over 1,000 per day.

Meanwhile, Cuba is involved in global research to develop a vaccine against the SARS CoV-2 virus.

Currently, four potential candidate vaccines are being developed, which will be quickly tested on animals, said Eduardo Martínez Díaz, head of the state pharmaceutical company Biocubafarma.

The peak of infections on the island is expected in the first half of May. While the median scenario assumes 2,000 cases, the “worst-case” scenario assumes approximately 4,500. This is based on the varying degrees of success in implementing the measures taken to date, including the extensions described below, over a period of four months.

Supermarkets now sell only food and hygiene products. Stores with a different assortment of products must switch to these two categories. In order to expedite sales, individual products will be combined into shopping baskets. In Havana, new points of sale will be set up on the streets and in stores.

The largest supermarkets in the city have been closed since Thursday. Corresponding measures in other provinces are currently being examined.

Restaurants are now only allowed to provide take-away or home delivery meals and must close at 8 PM. Stores that used to be open 24/7 are now allowed to remain open for a maximum of 12 hours.

E-commerce, which connects the warehouses of 13 stores with the ‘TuEnvio’ platform, is to be quickly extended. Cashless payment by smartphone will be promoted with up to ten percent discount.

Local public transportation will be suspended nationwide. This affects both inner-city and regional bus and train connections.

Private transport service providers whose license is temporarily suspended will not be required to pay taxes during the shutdown. Many workers have now been sent on holiday or – where possible – to home office. Those who still need to go to work are taken by company transport. Long-distance transportation on the island was suspended in late March.

The authorities are trying to detect local hotspots in order to trace infection chains and contain them in a targeted effort. In order to identify risk areas, both demographic data and mobile phone motion data are analyzed.

After parts of Havana’s Vedado district had gone into “social isolation” earlier, another area in the Cerro district was added on Wednesday. Consequently, public areas may now only be entered for shopping and going to work. Such areas will have designated entrance and exit doors.

Increased police controls are taking place. The “Naranjal” area in the provincial capital of Matanzas and the municipality of Gibara in Holguín have been under strict quarantine since Thursday and Friday, respectively. Residents are forced to remain in their homes at all times and are supplied with food packages by the state organizations.

The International Labor Day march on May 1st, in which some 700,000 people typically take part in Havana, will not take place this year. Instead, there will be online events and other activities on the Internet.