Cuba cancels May Day celebration due to COVID-19

HAVANA - The Cuban Communist Party (PCC) announced the cancelation of the upcoming May Day celebration marking the International Workers' Day in light of the spread of COVID-19 on the island, local media reported Wednesday.

The decision was made at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the PCC, presided over by First Secretary of the PCC Raul Castro.

Cuba earlier in March announced cancelation of massive political gatherings as a preventive measure against the coronavirus.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel asked Cuba's Workers Trade Union (CTC) to make proposals to mark May Day in line with current situation of the epidemic across the country.

Massive gatherings on the occasion of the International Workers' Day are customary all over the country since the socialist revolution victory in 1959.

Maria Romero, 52, a nurse at a polyclinic in Havana, said the best way to celebrate May Day is through helping combat the coronavirus, adding she will "hang a Cuban flag from the balcony as a symbol of national unity."

Every year, May Day parade at Havana's Revolution Square gathers hundreds of thousands of Cuban nationals as well as social activists and trade union leaders from across the world.

According to the Cuban Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Latin American nation has nearly 4.4 million workers, 1.4 million of whom are working in the private sector.