Cuba will reopen its borders in November, hoping its vaccines will keep COVID cases down
Despite an ongoing COVID-19 surge that has overwhelmed its health system, Cuban authorities will reopen the country’s borders starting in mid-November, saying that the country will have vaccinated 90 percent of its population by the beginning of the high season for tourism.
COVID-related measures at airports will be relaxed and “focused on symptomatic patients and taking the temperature,” Granma, the Communist Party’s newspaper, said Monday in a brief note citing information provided by the Ministry of Tourism.
Travelers will no longer be required to show a recent PCR test, and “vaccination certificates will be recognized,” the paper said. It is unclear if this means certificates are mandatory. The borders will start reopening “gradually” on Nov. 15. Authorities will also allow domestic tourism.
Currently, all travelers are tested for COVID and must comply with a mandatory quarantine in government hotels.
According to Granma, authorities weighed “the progress in the vaccination process in Cuba, its demonstrated effectiveness, and the perspective that more than 90% of the entire population will conclude the vaccination schedules in November.” To reach that goal, the country will need to ramp up the speed of vaccination significantly. Since April, when trials for Cuba’s locally produced vaccines started, to now only 30 percent of the population has been fully immunized.
“Starting today, the acceleration that we are going to give to the vaccination process will be something historic,” said a Ministry of Health official, Ileana Morales Suárez, in the “Mesa Redonda” TV news show on Monday.
For the past several weeks, the COVID pandemic has ravaged the island, with patients flooding hospitals and isolation centers lacking medicines, oxygen and usually even the essential supplies to provide care. Health authorities said there were 93 deaths and 7,771 new cases on Monday.
But the shortages of PCR tests and inconsistencies in how COVID data is reported suggest an undercount, which raises further questions about the effectiveness of the local vaccines.
The announcement comes after a year and a half in which the pandemic has halted most tourism to the cash-strapped Caribbean island. After assuring tourists Cuba was a safe destination as late as mid-March 2020, the government closed the borders to foreign travelers a few days later. In November last year, some commercial flights resumed, but authorities limited flights coming from several countries, including the U.S.
American and JetBlue continue flying weekly to the island, but the cheapest fares for early December come close to $2,000. Earlier flights are sold out.
The measures have added to the population’s hardships, as Cubans abroad, who take money and goods to their loved ones, have not traveled to the island as much as before.
Some Cubans say they were relieved they can now leave the country after an almost two-year ban on foreign travel, a little-publicized government measure.
“What we all were waiting for,” said a Cuban Twitter user. “This will be a Mariel with visas,” said another in reference to the 1980s exodus.
Still, many are wary about the relaxation of the COVID protocols at the border.
“I think the opening of the airports in November is hasty,” a reader that identified himself as Tony commented on the official government news website Cubadebate. “I understand that the country needs foreign currency for its development, but wait until you see the effectiveness of the vaccines and open up to the world later.”
Another replied: “Tony, you are right in your concern about opening the borders, but the economy cannot take it anymore. There is a severe shortage of almost everything. We must take advantage of this high season of tourism, or we are going to eat each other.”
