Deputy Director of MINREX says that Cuban hotels became hospitals during the pandemic, and faces heavy criticism

The Cuban deputy director of MINREX for the United States, Johana Tablada de la Torre, stated this Thursday that Cuba is the "country where some hotels converted into hospitals and health centers during the peak of the pandemic."

Tablada illustrated his message on Twitter with a nighttime photo of the Habana Libre hotel in Havana.

Tablada, which has become notorious for its frequent fake news on social media, insisted that hotel facilities "here in Cuba belong to the people."

It is false that the Cuban government has allocated first-class hotel facilities to patients or convalescents of COVID-19. In fact, this has been one of the many citizen complaints made on social media during the past summer, at the height of the pandemic.

At the end of August, while the state healthcare system was completely overwhelmed, Cuban authorities ordered the two-star hotel Ciego de Ávila, located in the province of the same name, to be converted into a pediatric hospital where more than 1,000 children and adolescents who were suspected or had recovered from COVID-19 were admitted.

Another hotel, the Santa Clara Libre, from the Isla Azul chain, also housed 63 pregnant patients infected with the virus and six children in September.

These are, so far, the only instances in which the authorities designated tourist facilities to accommodate patients with coronavirus, even though most of them had very low occupancy rates.

The response to the lies of the deputy minister was swift.

"Don't you feel ashamed to tell so many lies? Neither did you set up hotels as health centers, nor can the people go to your hotels," activist Saily de Amarillo retorted to the official.

"What I remember are bus terminals converted into hospitals. Maybe it's just hard for me to acknowledge it; is your tweet sarcasm? Or are you actually a dissident and doing these crude things to discredit the Cuban government?" pointed out another Twitter user.

"Just because of this tweet, we have to go out and protest. It’s such a big lie that it incites rage and indignation. Only the humble people of Cuba know the horrors endured during the pandemic, confined in unhealthy and inhumane places," said another commenter.

"How shameless you all are! While several provinces were collapsing due to a lack of oxygen, medicine, and hospital beds, you kept the hotels closed. Seriously, how shameless!!!" added another user.

It is not the first time that the Deputy Minister of MINREX has spread falsehoods and been met with widespread backlash. Recently, the official and last year denied the criticized renovations of a park in Vedado, which were documented with photos on social media.

She also included CiberCuba in the group of publications that, according to her, receive funding as part of an operation by the U.S. government to distort the reality of the island. Her false accusation was refuted by our editorial team in an editorial.

The deputy minister, unlike her mother, psychologist Corolina de la Torre, regularly supports repressive actions and rallies of repudiation against Cuban opponents and activists.