Cuba, Covid and America's grossly immoral foreign policy
Venezuela has been unable to purchase COVID-19 vaccines because of U.S. sanctions.
Top Venezuelan officials as well as the financial sector have been subject to heavy sanctions imposed in the Trump era in an effort to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who has held onto power.
Venezuelan officials said last week they could not complete a $10 million payment to the global COVAX vaccine program because bank transfers for a portion of the funds had been blocked.
U.S. sanctions on Iran are very similar. The idea behind these sanctions is to force either regime change, or mass deaths in these countries.
That seems to be how things were going to play out, until Cuba threw a monkeywrench into those plans. First with Iran.
Iran received a large shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from Cuba on Thursday.
A total of 100,000 Soberana 02 doses from the Latin American country were delivered to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Then yesterday, Cuba meddled with our Venezuela regime change plans.
As part of an agreement between the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, the first batch of Abdala vaccines arrived this Thursday to the South American nation, of the total of 12 million agreed, to contribute to Venezuela's immunization campaign, informed the executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez...
"Here is the triumph of Cuba, and it is a very significant day to be able to share in our homeland the arrival of the Abdala vaccine, presented just two days ago to humanity with an efficiency of more than 92 percent," added Rodriguez in her speech.
It must be extremely frustrating for our ruling elites to see tiny Cuba saving people that they intended to have die.
Cuba has developed multiple vaccines for Covid (the only Latin American country to do so), despite being under a brutal blockade that has caused a syringe shortage, and that's not all.
Cuba can’t buy ventilators needed for critically ill COVID-19 patients. Two Swiss manufacturers stopped selling ventilators to Cuba after a U.S. company bought them all up. But Cuban technicians devised their own ventilator model, which is in production now.
That may sound horrible. How could our nation's leaders be so cruel.
But believe me when I say "That isn't the worst of it by a mile." Washington has been much, much worse when it comes to Covid.
However, like the vaccines, this story has a happy ending.
While almost every other nation on Earth responded to the pandemic by shutting borders and access, Cuba responded in EXACTLY the opposite way: Cuba sent out thousands of doctors to over 40 nations, and in doing so, saved countless lives.
Yet even wealthy, western nations like Andorra and Italy have welcomed Cuban medics to help fight the pandemic, as have countries that are not politically aligned with Cuba, such as Peru.The success of the medics has been a setback for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which launched an unprecedented campaign against Cuba’s medical missions in recent years, citing what it calls their exploitative labor conditions.
Try to imagine how that must look to almost every other nation on this planet.
A tiny David-size nation, trying to save lives, standing up to a Goliath-sized nation, determined to end lives.
And David seems to be winning.
Yet, this isn't the worst. Washington put heavy pressure on any right-wing government in Latin America to get rid of these Cuban doctors, just as the pandemic hit.
When Bolsonaro took power in Brazil, 8,300 Cuban doctors were kicked out.
After the right-wing coup in Bolivia, 700 Cuban doctors were kicked out.
Hundreds more were kicked out of Ecuador when a neoliberal won the election.
In every case, kicking out the Cuban doctors during a pandemic cause massive losses of life.
Ecuador is one of a handful of U.S. allies that fell in step with the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy on Cuba, bringing an end to agreements that filled understaffed clinics and hospitals from the snow-capped Andes to the sweltering Amazon with thousands of doctors and nurses trained by the communist state.Now that country, and South American neighbors Brazil and Bolivia, are struggling to cope with outbreaks of the coronavirus that have overwhelmed hospitals and, in Ecuador, left bodies in the streets. The surge in cases and deaths, expected to climb in the coming weeks, has partisans arguing over a highly politicized question: Could those doctors and nurses now be saving lives?
“When they left, there were no specialists to replace them,” said Ricardo Ramírez, a retired physician in Ecuador’s hard-hit city of Guayaquil and head of a regional Anti-Corruption Commission. “It’s one important factor why we can’t provide an adequate response to the virus now.”
Brazil tried, and failed, to replace the Cuban doctors. In the end, when Covid had gotten completely out of hand, Brazil had no choice but to rehire 1,800 Cuban doctors.
There is currently a global movement to nominate Cuban doctors for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Comments
Has there ever been a Nobel War Prize?
Good Morning. just wondering, if there would have been, who would have won that one.
Well, just forget my question. Thanks to the Cuban doctors. Your article was very interesting.
Have a good weekend, hopefully the weather, where ever you are, is agreeably tempered. /s/me not speak English too well/ sorry.
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Nobel War Prize?
That's what Kissinger and Obama should have been awarded.
Apparently, some sort of clerical error that led to them
getting Peace Prizes instead...
Kind of embarrassing, that.
"I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing. (June 17, 2021)
John McAfee 1945-2021
I certainly hope they are nominated and awarded.
Nice report. The little country that can.
ETA: I am sick of our thuggery, violence, interfering and not taking care of our own. It's embarrassing, difficult to explain, and makes us glad every day we are not living there.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
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Medicine and agriculture
are two areas where where Cuba done well. Hopefully, they have been able to develop real and effective and safe vaccines. Efficacy-wise, there seem to be significant issues with Sinopharm and enough deaths and horror stories w/the various western (Astra Zeneca, J&J, Pfizer, Moderna) to hope they've come up with something better.
And, as they have no institutional bias against cheap and effective therapeutics, the Cubans will likely readily employ things like HCQ and Ivermectin that Americans (or Japanese) face obstacles to receiving.
Agree, in general, about sanctions and their abuse. Would love to see a presidential candidate pledge to suspend all sanctions and states of emergency for 90 days on taking office - and not to re-impose any except on a case-by-case transparent review.
Might not do much to enhance their chances of surviving to take office, though, if it looked like they had any chance at winning...
"I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing. (June 17, 2021)
RIP John McAfee 1945-2021
Something better?
Someday Ivermectin will be the standard of both prevention and care (my humble prediction). In the meantime novel vaccines are the standard of
careprevention for novel viruses and our government will resist any threat to Big Pharma’s lock on that market.Using vaccine access restrictions as a political cudgel is simply amoral and totally inexcusable.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
"Using vaccine access restrictions as a political cudgel...
is simply amoral and totally inexcusable."
Agree. Although in this case they may have inadvertently been doing people a favor.
Preventing access to safe and affordable therapeutics to flog experimental vaccines to
enrich Big Pharma at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives rates pretty high on the
amoral and inexcusable scale, too - no?
Yes, I believe you’re quite right on this!
A blessing in disguise.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
"Ivermectin" has become a dirty word, why?
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Perhaps simply because you can’t make boatloads of $$$$$$$
selling an out of patent generic medication, and simultaneously undercut the EUA’s that permit vaccines to be widely administered without being fully tested.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Speaking of Guayaquil...
Remember how Trump was ridiculed for mentioning "injecting bleach"?
Everyone 'knew' he was insane and irresponsible, right? Well, maybe not so much.
You won't find any mention in the MSM of the fact that 'bleach' (chlorine dioxide) therapy employed by a scratch team of Ecuadorian doctors saved hundreds of lives in Guayaquil in 2020. Yet one of the lead doctors involved who had Covid and feels his life was saved by (injected) CLO2 - also fears that the lives of himself and his team are in danger from what he terms the "Pharma mafia" precisely because of his own example as 'living proof' and that of others having survived Covid with a cheap and safe therapeutic.
(English translation has significant problems - between subtitles and dialogue though, those with modest Spanish skills should get the main bits)
Dr. Mauricio Quinones Mendoza interview
(Spanish w/English subs - May, 2020)
Dr. Andreas Kalcker on the Guayaquil trial - Oral Chlorine Dioxide Therapy
(100% recovery in 104 patients)
(English - May, 2020)
Covid-19 section of Kalcker's main ClO2 website:
https://andreaskalcker.com/en/coronavirus/introducción.html
Some unsung heroes here.
All the blame seems to be on Trump
Has Biden reversed these policies? Have Nancy or Chuckie called on him to do so?
Has even Bernie done so?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Ivermectin.
as Ovals49 referenced above, needs to be distributed far and wide. I'm getting my own Rx from my doctor as a preventative method. He's not on board with what our medical/pharmaceutical professions are espousing. He's on board with Dr. Pierre Kory.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
My prescription is on the way.
I feel better already!
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Capitalism
has no obligation to give a nod to morality. When philosophy of governments (China, Russia, US etc. ) becomes the servant of economic warfare, the rest of the world is viewed as either allies of foes. For all our problems the last thing we do is look to other nations for solutions to our problems. Health care, unemployment, child care, education, on and on, other nations have invented systems to serve their citizens. Take cell phone service, poorer smaller countries have cheaper and faster communication and internet, while the US business model is to capture the market and charge the maximum rates for the slowest, antiquated service. This is what our government exists for, the profits of the status quo.
We'll never forgive Cuba for kicking us (and our corrupt puppets) out and working with Russia, until we can overthrow their government and put things back the way they were.
Cuba has it's problems, but in many ways it's willingness to aid other countries in health care is morally admirable. We aid countries too, in a different way. We send them bombs and missiles. Sometimes in crates, sometimes flying through the air.
Cuba’s five COVID-19 vaccines:
I am refusing the gene therapy "vaccines" (ie. viral vector and mRNA) until basic testing has been done (first ones expected to be completed 2022/2023).
Cuba reports a high success rate
Fantastic article!
The core takeaway for me:
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Does "vaccine apartheid" argument help big pharma?
The first time I heard the term "vaccine apartheid" was from The Intercept. An article was criticizing American pharma for not sharing vaccine technologies with developing world. No mention of Russian, Chinese, or Cuban vaccines in development. The whole tone of the article was that only big pharma vaccines could save countries outside the West. I have read the same in other articles about vaccine apartheid that implicitly only Western made vaccines can save the world.
From reading non-Western news sources, it appears that the Russian and Chinese vaccines in particular are vaccinating the rest of the world (except for Astra which has worked with Indian supplies to produce it locally). This in the face of pressure from American and EU governments to prevent their use. A number of countries have already started producing the Sputnik V vaccine locally in massive doses (such as Argentina and India). Hopefully the same for the Cuban vaccines very soon.
The West has accused the Chinese and Russians of using "vaccine diplomacy" to gain diplomatic advantage for their nefarious agendas. And Russia and China winning due to actions from Pfizer whose demands are extortion levels. The State department should talk to pharma about their horrendous demands as they are helping to lose vaccine diplomacy. I am sure though pharma will tell State department to remember whose interests they are serving.
Cuban medical brigades
The prize for medicine might be more appropriate for the Cubans, but it doesn't make any difference because Nobel prizes are not awarded to people from communist countries. It's a capitalist prize.
Vermonter
I think several nobel prizes were awarded to Soviet ...
I remember times when people believed
that science and politics were independent from each other. To get a nobel prize for physics or chemistry was considered indeed a noble and honorable prize. May be I was naive back in the days, but I doubt it.
Just saying.
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Sahkarov
Vermonter
Le Duc Tho
from Wikipedia:
A little irreverent humour ...
[video:https://youtu.be/TOxjcvi5KIo]