Cuba has announced a series of new openings on the way to a coronavirus "new normal," including reopening some airports to international tourist flights.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero this week unveiled a three-step plan to "move toward a new normal" and mitigate the economic impact on the island of the COVID-19 crisis and U.S. sanctions.
The provinces where airports will be reopened to international flights starting Monday will be Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Camaguey, Las Tunas, Holguin, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo. The government said Havana province will soon begin to receive international flights, but gave no date. Ciego de Avila and Sancti Spiritus will remain closed because of coronavirus outbreaks in those provinces.
Under Trump administration restrictions, commercial flights originating in the United States can only land in Havana. Some charter flights are allowed to land in Havana and other provinces.
Marrero did not clarify whether the changes include an end to the government's prohibition on Cubans flying abroad. But the official Mesa Redonda TV program reported on its web page that they would be allowed to do so once the international flights start.
Cuba will require all arriving passengers to sign a sworn declaration of good health and take a test to detect the virus, officials said.
"In the previous phase we opened the northern and southern keys to tourism ... in this phase we're allowing the possibility of international flight arrivals" to other provinces, Marrero said Thursday.
Cuban citizens arriving from abroad will not be forced to quarantine in government facilities, and will be able to go directly to their homes.
Marrero also said that Cuba residents who were stranded abroad when the international flights were halted will be able to extend their stay outside the island for another year without losing their status and benefits as residents.
"In this new normal, the use of face masks in enclosed spaces is mandatory," Marrero said. "In open areas and where there's no concentration of people, the mask can be removed."
Marrero also said that people with symptoms of COVID-19 "and other communicable diseases" will be denied entry to schools and workplaces.
The government also will eliminate the daily news briefings by Public Health Ministry officials, and start two weekly meetings of the task force monitoring the evolution of the pandemic.
Authorities also will end the practice of removing anyone suspected of COVID-19 to quarantine centers for 14 days. About 115,000 people were quarantined since March, and only 4.6% tested positive, Marrero said.
Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel declared in a radio and TV address that the island's strategy for battling the coronavirus had been "successful."
Cubans should "learn to coexist with the virus," Diaz-Canel said, adding that the battle against the pandemic was "costing" state resources. He also called for a different strategy for the battle.
He painted a foreboding picture of the country's economic panorama, and blamed it on the pandemic and U.S. sanctions.
The island closed its airports in late May and blocked residents from traveling abroad, with Marrero saying at the time that foreign travel represented "a risk for Cubans."
