Havana, June 9 (RHC)-- Shortly before the plane that brought home the 52 medical workers who saved lives in Italy landed on Cuban soil, Cuban government leaders checked the situation with COVID-19, as they do everyday.  

The day was marked by that longed-for return and also by the encouraging numbers of this 90th day of the fight against the disease in Cuba.

The Minister of Public Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, updated the news and reiterated that the lethality rate in the country has continued to fall to 3.77% -- 18th in the Americas -- after the ninth consecutive day in which no Cuban had died from COVID-19 in the country, according to the Granma newspaper.

At the meeting, headed by President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, it was also reported that out of 44, only two events are still open: one in the municipality of Centro Habana, in the capital, and another in Turiguanó, in Ciego de Ávila.  During the last hours, it was decided to close the one that had been generated in the Provincial Center of Social Protection of El Cotorro, also in Havana, at the end of the 28 days established without confirming new cases.

Among other hopeful figures, Portal Miranda pointed to the 247 confirmed patients still admitted, 98.7 % have a stable clinical evolution.  Meanwhile, of the 2,200 people who have suffered from the disease in the country, 1,868 are now out of danger.

The most delicate situation continues to be in Havana, which to date has reported 1,153 cases, eight of which were reported on Monday.  Regarding the work being carried out in the province, Governor Reinaldo Garcia Zapata explained that a process of purging the patients who are suspected of suffering from the disease has begun and that they are being admitted to health institutions, taking into account that only 3 percent are finally proving to be positive.

He added that the number of 1,500 daily pcr tests in the capital has already begun to be met; the protocol of action towards travelers arriving in the country was revised, in order to apply rapid tests immediately upon arrival, and inspections of state institutions began to be carried out to check compliance with health measures.  

In a dialogue with the highest authorities of Havana, Díaz-Canel was interested in the supply of agricultural products in the capital, in which deliveries from Artemisa and Mayabeque have been below normal.  In this regard, he said to make a study on the forms of distribution and marketing in the province, to improve and make more efficient their systems, expand the possibilities of management by all forms of production and to reach more directly the products of the field to the markets.