The Biden administration has been ridiculed for claiming Cubans are protesting 'rising COVID cases' after thousands took to the streets from Havana to Santiago chanting 'down with the dictatorship' in the biggest anti-government demonstrations on the Communist-run island in decades. 

The images of protests in Cuba that went viral on social media on Sunday prompted officials in the United States to call for an American-led intervention to topple the ruling government in Havana. 

Cubans marched on Havana's Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island to protest food shortages and soaring inflation, which some economists believe could hit 900 percent this year.

Many young people took part in the afternoon protest in the capital, which disrupted traffic until police moved in after several hours and broke up the march when a few protesters threw rocks. Special forces vehicles, with machine guns mounted on the back, were seen throughout the capital and the police presence was heavy even long after most protesters had gone home by the 9pm curfew in place due to the pandemic.

Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted 'Freedom,' 'Enough' and 'Unite.' One motorcyclist pulled out a US flag, but it was snatched from him by others.  

The US State Department was criticized for an official's tweet on Sunday claiming that the protests in Cuba were in reaction to 'rising COVID cases'.

'Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID case/deaths & medicine shortage. We commend the numerous efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing donations to help neighbors,' tweeted Julie Chung, the acting assistant secretary for the department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.