Cuba will not reopen its schools before having vaccinated all the children of the country, announced the Minister of Education Ena Elsa Velazquez, specifying that the start of the school year would take place next Monday but remotely.
“
We know that Cuban families are very worried about the resumption of face-to-face schooling, and it is important to say (...) that on September 6, we will restart the school year, but through televised courses
, ”she declared Tuesday evening, August 31, on state television.
Read alsoBetween repression and Covid-19: Cuba in the twilight of Castrism
And "
we decided, in agreement with the Ministry of Health (...), that the schoolchildren would return to school in person once vaccinated
", she added, indicating that a three-step schedule, from the oldest to the youngest, had been decided.
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Cuba announces "emergency authorization" of Soberana, its second vaccine
Worrisome contagion figures
The island, which has developed its own vaccines, is currently conducting pediatric clinical trials with its Abdala and Soberana vaccines, with the intention of immunizing Cuban children from the age of three. To prevent the spread of the disease, schools across the country have been closed since March 2020 and only reopened briefly, for a few weeks, at the end of the year, before closing again in January. Schoolchildren and students must therefore follow the lessons via television.
Cuba, which had succeeded in controlling the epidemic on its territory the first times, has posted very worrying contagion figures since July, the arrival of the delta variant rocking its health system, pride and social pillar of the island.
The island of 11.2 million inhabitants has accumulated 652,855 cases including 5,303 deaths.
Read alsoCovid-19: Cuba urgently authorizes Soberana, its second vaccine
Under an American embargo since 1962, the country began to develop its own vaccines in the 1980s, which allowed it to produce two vaccines against the coronavirus: Abdala and Soberana. They are not recognized by the WHO. But due to the big delay in the vaccination program, with around 30% of the population immunized against a target of 70% at the end of August, Cuba started using Chinese Sinopharm vaccine on Sunday as well.