Coronavirus: Cuba quarantines tourists

Text by: Domitille Piron

Tourists in quarantine. This is the decision taken by Cuba on Tuesday, which also closes its borders to tourism for at least a month. The Cuban government is changing its strategy to deal with the coronavirus epidemic, while last week it wanted to preserve the main engine of its economy.

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From our correspondent in Havana,

No more strolling through the streets of old Havana and the beaches of Varadero. Tourists in Cuba are now banned from leaving; they are in solitary confinement in hotels and guesthouses.

This concerns 32,000 foreign travelers who have not yet been able to leave the island, including 2,500 French nationals, and the airlines Air France and Air Caraïbes no longer carry out commercial connections between Havana and Paris.

This is a reversal on the part of the government, which wished at all costs to preserve tourism, the second sector of economic activity. The borders are therefore now closed to the entry of tourists for at least one month.

Only Cuban residents can return to the island and will be quarantined for 15 days upon their return to isolation centers.

For the time being, the 48 cases of new confirmed coronaviruses are only imported cases.

► Read also: Cuba says it is ready to face the coronavirus epidemic, despite its first cases

A month without tourists in Cuba and the suspension of travel between provinces is a real economic tragedy for the state but also for the more than 600,000 workers in the private sector, the vast majority of whom depend on tourism.
A sector already heavily affected in 2019, with a drop of 15%, attributed to the American sanctions.

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• Coronavirus
• Cuba
• Tourism

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