Tag Archives | coronavirus

A broad representation of Cuban scientists will address a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden evidencing Cuba’s scientific and political capacity to face Covid-19, in an altruistic manner, despite the limitations of the U.S. blockade.

Cuba only needs around 30 million syringes to vaccinate its entire population–that is a million dollars. This is a tiny sum for the countries, either together or even individually, which oppose the blockade of Cuba.

In complete contrast to its founding ideals, the WHO is now captured by wealthy countries and corporations at the cost of millions of poor globally.

One and a half years since the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil, it is possible to better evaluate some of its effects. The most visible immediate aspect of the pandemic has certainly been the sudden suspension of in-person activities and the temporary closure of schools and universities.

Georgina Orellano, secretary-general of the Association of Women Sex Workers of Argentina (AMMAR), says that “the pandemic has highlighted the inequality” in society and deepened the problems faced by sex workers. Sex work, which is not recognized in Argentina, has become more precarious, she says.

Despite facing the world’s worst pandemic of the last century, rich countries in the World Trade Organization (WTO) have blocked efforts to enable more affordable access to the means to fight the pandemic.

In countries where public health restrictions were in place, they were half-baked or have been lifted too soon. Where they are imposing them now, it’s too late; the Delta variant of the coronavirus is surging around the world.

World Health Organization Director-General notes, “The global failure to share vaccines equitably is fuelling a two-track pandemic that is now taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

The lab leak theory bears a striking resemblance to the WMD hoax of 2002, not only in the fact that one of its key players is literally the same journalist using potentially the same anonymous sources, but also in the bipartisan political and media support it enjoys.

Last week, Venezuela signed an agreement with Cuba for the purchase of 12 million doses of Abdala, just three days after the country announced and celebrated the success of its locally developed anti-COVID-19 vaccine

With its development of five COVID-19 vaccines and the promise of sharing know-how with developing countries, Cuba has remained faithful to Che Guevara’s values of international solidarity and people-oriented medicine.

COVID-19 and other zoonotic outbreaks such as Ebola are illustrative of the complex interactions between deforestation, biodiversity loss, ecosystem destruction, and human health and safety.

CUBA’S economy lost more than $9 billion (£6.5bn) amid the coronavirus pandemic last year, due to the impact of the six decade-long U.S. blockade, government officials said on Thursday.

Venezuela’s efforts at the Copa America football tournament have also been derailed after 15 players and staffers caught the virus, prompting calls for an investigation.

India’s big capital, in close cahoots with the political class, took advantage of privatisation policies to seize public resources (including profitable public sector assets), acquire vast tracts of land by displacing village and forest communities, control the nation’s mineral resources, and undermine public sector banks through a cascading set of fraud and non-payment schemes.

COVID-19 infections in most countries have been hugely underestimated—not least because rich countries bought almost all the tests.

At the height of India’s COVID-19 crisis, some Chinese netizens saw retribution for the Modi government’s aggressive posture towards China. In this essay, Chinese blogger 红色卫士 (Red Defender) instead insists on internationalist solidarity and a distinction between the right-wing Modi government and the working class and low-caste peoples who suffer the most under his regime.

Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, first recorded in India end January 2020, this Modi government’s preoccupation had never been on combating the pandemic in right earnest and saving people’s lives but on continuing to relentlessly pursue the unfolding of the RSS project.

Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 in early January 2020 and by March of that year had “irrefutably” concluded the virus was not of human design. Since then, the goalposts have shifted repeatedly in an attempt to keep laboratory escape a viable theory, despite no evidence to support the continued supposition.

International cooperation must ensure significantly more official foreign exchange financing to supplement innovative domestic financing for urgently needed spending for relief, recovery and reform.