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| credit: P Byrnes |
Hard enough logistically to vaccinate 230,000 million people without psychodrama and politics. Like most other things in this country the vaccine program is mired in distrust, political priorities*, mistakes, and religious non-cooperation. Meanwhile™, the virus mutates and continues to kill. Three months after vaccine approvals only an estimated 100 million have received a single dose of a two dose regimen.
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| credit: J. Darkow |
US Person is all about making didactic comparisons. Let's look at Cuba. Cuba is the only Latin American country to produce a COVID-19 vaccine. In fact, it has produced five that are in clinical trials, two of which are in Phase III. By the end of the year, the island nation of 11.2 million should be able to produce 100 million doses. That fact alone is impressive for a small nation. But wait--it has one of the western world's lowest infection rates and death rates too.; In 2020 Cuba confirmed a total of 12,225 coronavirus cases and 146 deaths. Of course it is aided by geography, but the nation has gone on the offensive against the virus mobilizing its community-based public healthcare system to carry out daily house visits to actively detect and treat cases. 57 brigades of medical specialists from Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Contingent have treated 1.26 million Covid-19 patients in 40 countries; they joined 28,000 Cuban healthcare professionals already working in 66 countries.
The short explanation for this success is: Cuba is a socialist country that puts human welfare ahead of profits. Thank you, Dr. Che Guevera! So what is the predictable capitalist response to Cuba's remarkable achievements in medicine and public health? WAPO says it all: a “public relations coup for an isolated country that was added back to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in the final days of the Trump administration.” Cue the British poodle: Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a group of Conservative Party backbenches: ‘The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends." Cuba has accomplished a similar feat without greed. Cuba's death rate is 35 per million and the fatality rate is just 0.59% in 2021 (2.2% worldwide; 2.9% in Britain). Its biomedical infrastructure was developed despite a half century of punishing economic boycott by a giant near neighbor, which should be a natural trading partner, not an implacable enemy. It is informative to note that the capitalist colony next door, Puerto Rico, lost it only claim to scientific claim when the Arecibo Radio Telescope collapsed and was completely distroyed due to neglect. By the end of August 2021, six million Cubans, over half the population, will have been covered and by the end of the year, Cuba will be among the world’s first countries to fully vaccinate its entire population. VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!
*For example, the state of Oregon with a greater population is receiving fewer doses than Kansas and Wyoming. The disparate treatment prompted state officials to contact the White House about this inequity. One explanation offered by the federal government on its vaccine website is that doses for tribe members and military personnel are sent directly to those organizations. Alaska, which has high numbers of indigenous and military personnel, has the highest number of vaccine doses sent to it per capita. Of the 34 states with higher vaccinatiuon rates than Oregon, 30 have received more doses.