Numbers decreasing, but not responsibility

Havana, and the entire country, awoke yesterday with the good news of only one new case of COVID-19, maintaining the recent favorable trend in the capital province that has been the epicenter and “tail end” of the epidemic.

However encouraging the positive statistics may seem, we are at a dangerous point in this battle.

It would be foolish to forgo the discipline and responsibility that have allowed us to control the virus thus far. If we give in to euphoria and "de-escalate" on our own, the figures could be different tomorrow. There are still sick patients and a significant number of individuals under epidemiological surveillance.

The data is indeed encouraging, but no one should overlook the fact that there are still risks, and that any imprudent behavior could erase everything we have gained.

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero noted in a tweet, yesterday, that Havana is “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Our people deserve a good summer, but maintaining sanitary precautions."

As Marrero rightly put it, we must break the coronavirus to bits and make sure that Havana - so critical to the economic and social life of the country - can move, sooner rather than later, to the first phase of recovery.