Nueva Gerona, April 25 (RHC)-- The Municipal Defense Council (CDM) of Isla de la Juventud -- the Isle of Youth -- has declared a new area in La Fe in quarantine, due to the increase in positive cases of COVID-19 in that locality, second in importance of the special municipality.

The cessation of vehicle and pedestrian traffic beginning at 6 p.m. local time was also decreed, due to 35 cases that tested positive for the coronavirus SARS CoV-2, which causes the infectious disease.  One area resident died, for an incidence rate of 41.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.  This is considered to be great epidemiological risk, considering that the local population is only a little over 84,000 people.

Israel Velázquez Batista, sectoral director of Public Health in the Cuban municipality, reported that the two new patients reside in the same building, where there are already 12 patients belonging to the second event of limited local transmission, opened in the Popular Council La Fe.

Because the origin of the initial case in this community is still unclear, the MDC decided to expand the perimeter of the quarantine area, which now covers 608 homes and 1,824 residents, and to establish two access points for the disinfection of people and vehicles.

In view of the health emergency in Cuba, with 1,285 confirmed cases to date, it is necessary to continue generating confidence in the population from effective and timely communication, although some undisciplined people still persist, said Zunilda Garcia Garcés, president of the MCC.

She commented that the special municipality is in a position to cut the chain of transmission of the new coronavirus, but to do so, it is necessary to have a greater perception of the risk and to comply with the new measure decreed: "After six o'clock in the afternoon, there can be no one on the street."