Protests Erupt in Cuba

[dann]

How the U.S. Blockade Has Killed Cubans during the Pandemic

Three very short videos that put the OP of this thread into perspective:

Mitchell Valdes-Sosa is the Director of The Cuban Center for Neuroscience. He busts the myth that the U.S. embargo hasn’t affected Cuba’s health care system in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic by showing how sanctions have impeded Cuba from making its own masks, ventilators and swabs for PCR tests.
Sanctions In a Pandemic, Pt. 1 (Belly of the Beast on YouTube, Oct 9, 2021 - 2:33 min.)

Tania Urquiza Rodríguez is the Vice President of BioCubaFarma, the country's state-run biotech conglomerate. She breaks down how U.S. sanctions have impacted Cuba's ability to produce its own vaccines and medications during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sanctions In a Pandemic, Pt. 2 (Belly of the Beast on YouTube, Oct 16, 2021 - 3:41 min.)

Eulogio Pimentel is Vice President of BioCubaFarma, the country’s state-run biotech conglomerate that has made two of the world’s top vaccines against the COVID-19 virus. He explains how U.S. sanctions have cost lives in Cuba by forcing a delay in the vaccines’ production.
Sanctions In a Pandemic, Pt. 3 (Belly of the Beast on YouTube, Oct 23, 2021 - 2:00 min.)

 

[dann]

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and today:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 49, USA 96. (Decreased testing?)
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.04, USA 3.82.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 87.44, total 93.83; USA: fully 65.27, total 76.54.
Since it takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 310.74, USA 167.81.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.11, USA 0.05.
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide
The numbers from this thread for Dec 17, 2021, January 17, 2022 and Feb 17, 2022.

Italian volunteers participating in Soberana Plus-Turin clinical trials arrive in Cuba (Granma.cu, March 9, 2022)
Abdala demonstrates safety and immunogenicity in children (Granma.cu, Feb 17, 2022)

Google translate:

In March alone, eight people have died from this disease, and that keeps the lethality at 0.12%. Since the start of the pandemic in Cuba, the total number of fatalities is 8,503.
El mayor peso de transmisión de la COVID-19 en Cuba se concentra en los casos autóctonos (Granma.cu, March 15, 2022)

 

[dudalb]

One or our resident Marxists loves a Marxist dictatorship. No news in that.

 

[dann]

One of our self-proclaimed centrists didn't even discover the lie in the OP. No news in that.

A System modeled after that of the old Soviet Union fails badly. Whatta surprise.
But I though Cuba had such a great health care system?

Meanwhile in the real world:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people: Cuba 0.06, USA 2.51.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people: Cuba 752, USA 2,934.
Apparently, Cuba does have such a great health-care system - in spite of all the obstacles the U.S. blockade puts in its way.
The only reason why the USA's health-care system is not considered to have failed is that it is considered a moral obligation for old people to be willing to die on the altar of capitalism.

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, described the recognition of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with its Medal for Inventors as “well deserved” for the authors of four Cuban anti-COVID vaccines.
On the social network Twitter, the Head of State expressed that “with the control of the pandemic, the people gave them the first prize. Many more will come.”
The MSc. María de los Ángeles Sánchez Torres, General Director of the Cuban Industrial Property Office (OPI) informed the Cuban News Agency (ACN) that Soberana 01, Soberana 02, Abdala and Mambisa are the ones selected for the stimulation for their contributions to the national economic and technological development.
He also announced that next Monday Daren Tang, director general of WIPO, will travel to Havana at the head of a delegation from this specialized organization, to deliver the medals to the creators of Cuban immunogens.
Despite the existing limitations due to the siege of the United States against the Caribbean nation, ten products of Cuban science have received the WIPO Gold Medal from the first, in 1989, to the last, in 2015, the ACN mentioned.
“Well-deserved international recognition” for the creators of Cuban anti-COVID vaccines (Euro24, March 26, 2022)

Diaz-Canel acknowledges vaccine creators in Cuba (Prensa Latina, March 26, 2022)
«Muy merecido reconocimiento internacional» para los creadores de vacunas cubanas anti-COVID (Granma.cu, March 26, 2022)

 

[dann]

The Director General commended Cuba’s robust response to the COVID-19 pandemic which showed the island’s expertise in the biopharma area. President Díaz-Canel said the COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time.
Later in the day, Mr. Tang presented the inventors of the vaccines with WIPO awards in recognition of their achievements, in the presence of President Díaz-Canel.
WIPO Director General Ends Latin America Four-Nation Visit in Cuba (World Intellectual Property Organization, March 28, 2022)

Recibió Díaz-Canel al Director General de la Organización Mundial de la Propiedad Intelectual (+ Video) (Granma.cu, March 29, 2022)
I'm surprised to see Díaz-Canel without a face mask, but I assume that was exclusively for the photo opportunity.
Face masks still play an important role in Cuba's successful fight against the virus:

 

[dann]

This is one of those Reuters articles about Cuba that are almost entirely ignored by the Western media, but it is worth remembering now when some of the most persistent countries in the struggle against the virus have surrendered to Omicron.

HAVANA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Cuba's widespread COVID-19 vaccination coverage and early move to inoculate its children proved pivotal in beating back the highly infectious Omicron variant before it ever took hold on the island, local and international experts say.
(...)
Health workers on the Caribbean island have since fully inoculated 1.8 million children between 2 and 18 years of age, or upwards of 96% of the total, with no serious side effects reported, according to official Cuban data.
(...)
"Elsewhere in the world, the virus is circulating more in the pediatric population, but that is not happening in Cuba," he said.
Cuba´s success to date against Omicron comes as a relief to authorities. A spike in cases in 2021 and economic crisis resulted in food and medicine shortages, power blackouts and the largest anti-government protests since Fidel Castro´s 1959 revolution.
Cuba's vaccine coverage and focus on children helped beat back Omicron, experts say (Reuters, Feb 17, 2022)

Cuba, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people + test positivity rate (some countries absent)
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
Cumulative[/hilite] confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
You can "Type to add a country" if you so desire. I deliberately left out the USA because it tends to 'flatten the curves' of other countries - particularly the cumulative confirmed deaths.

Notice that Cuba's rates of infections and deaths skyrocketed in the summer and fall of 2021 when the population had not yet been vaccinated, but the country has managed to keep them very low since then. There is obviously a big difference between, on the one hand, trying to spare children from getting infected and, on the other hand, deliberately using them as a vector for spreading the virus in order to achieve an imaginary herd immunity.

 

[dann]

English translation of a Belgian (= French language) article:

As soon as the vaccination campaign was launched in Cuba, the results were spectacular. On Sept. 20, when the campaign began, there were still more than 40,000 new infections and 69 deaths per day. Today, Cuba has fewer than 80 new infections and one death per day.
Cuban children are also vaccinated from the age of two. As of Dec. 6, some 90% of Cubans had received their first dose. This places the island second only to the United Arab Emirates in terms of vaccination rates. No other country in Latin America has such a high vaccination coverage. In Belgium, it is at 76%.
Why Cuba has no anti-vaccine movement (Workers World, Dec 13, 2021)

 

[dann]

Cuba's anti-Covid vaccine Abdala:

The president reacted to the announcement that the scientific documentation on the results of the Abdala vaccine, with which millions of Cubans have been immunized, is ready to be analyzed by specialists from the Pan-American (PAHO) and World Health Organizations (WHO).
(...)
Abdala will be a pioneer in Cuba in presenting its dossier to the WHO and initiating the process of international recognition.
Formal exchanges with the WHO on this vaccine began in March by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).
Impact of Cuban vaccines against COVID-19 is unstoppable (Granma.cu, April 7, 2022)

 

[dann]

A System modeled after that of the old Soviet Union fails badly. Whatta surprise.
But I though Cuba had such a great health care system?

No, dudalb never thought that Cuba had such a great health-care system. Why would anyone thinks so when they never make the effort to read up on it instead of continually bleating, 'four legs g-o-o-o-o-d, two legs b-a-a-a-a-d!'?

Cuba is home to one of the world’s largest medical schools and is training the next generation of doctors to care for the poor. From helping people after the devastating earthquake in Haiti to treating patients with Ebola in West Africa, Cuba has answered the call. Cuban doctors and nurses are providing medical care in over sixty five developing countries around the world.
Meet the U.S. Students Studying Medicine For Free in Cuba (Break Through News on YouTube, Feb 2, 2022)

Big problems need big solutions, sparked by big ideas, imagination and audacity. In this talk, journalist Gail Reed profiles one big solution worth noting: Havana’s Latin American Medical School, which trains global physicians to serve the local communities that need them most.
Gail Reed: Where to train the world's doctors? Cuba. (TED talk on YouTube, Oct 1, 2014)

Cuba is home to one of the world’s largest medical schools and is training the next generation of doctors to care for the poor. From helping people after the devastating earthquake in Haiti to treating patients with Ebola in West Africa, Cuba has answered the call. Cuban doctors and nurses are providing medical care in over sixty five developing countries around the world.
Gail Reed and William Gumede on Cuba's medical success (CGTN on YouTube, July 29, 2015)

Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba. www.wicuba.org
Studying Medicine in Cuba - Alexandra Skeeter (MATA Community Media (MCM) on Youtube, Nov 15, 2017)

And then, of course, there's still:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people

So, dudalb, if you actually thought that Cuba had such a great health-care system, you would have been right. Too bad that you didn't and weren't. Things have obviously changed since your sneer on July 12, 2021.
Much too often, sarcasm is nothing but an attempt to cover up ignorance.

 

[dann]

Health as a right instead of as a commodity to be bought and sold - if you can afford it.

In the midst of efforts to contain the pandemic, the Ministry of Health achieves commendable results that distinguish Cuba worldwide.
Among the main achievements is pediatric vaccination against COVID-19, the only one of its kind in the world.
La salud como derecho y no como mercancía (+ Video) (Granma.cu, April 9, 2022)

 

[dann]

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and today:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 43, USA 98. (Decreased testing?)
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.03, USA 1.44.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 752.73, USA 2,969.40.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 87.71, total 94.05; USA: fully 65.87, total 77.13.
Since it takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 314.18, USA 171.02.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.11, USA 0.12.
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide
The numbers from this thread for Dec 17, 2021, January 17, 2022, Feb 17, 2022 and March 16, 2022.

Five factors that explain the difference between Cuba and the rest of the world after the Omicron variant appeared
(...)
1. When Omicron arrived in Cuba, there was a level of immunity in the population close to 90%.
2. In Cuba, the vaccinations were more recent than in the rest of the world.
3. From the very beginning, the immunization campaign of three doses was conceived. The importance of a third dose in the maturation of the response has been confirmed, not only in the amount of antibodies, but also in their neutralizing capacity.
4. Mass vaccination of the pediatric population of two years of age and older has been another key element and a distinguishing factor of what has been done on the Island, unlike in the world.
5. Faced with the spread of the new supertransmitter strain of Omicron, the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) decided to accelerate the administration of an additional dose, so that, in the month of January 2022, around 50% of the population in Cuba received a booster dose.
Cinco factores que explican la diferencia de lo que ha ocurrido en Cuba con la llegada de Ómicron respecto al mundo (Granma.cu, April 16, 2022)

It isn't mentioned in the article, but the importance of Cuba's policy of masking up is also a major difference in comparison to (some) other countries.

 

[dann]

The pandemic response - USA and Cuba

In the USA, a federal judge in Florida strikes down the mandate for planes and public transport:

"Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets."
Colbert: That's the masks job, you dummy! So the droplets don't get on you. That's like saying, 'This diaper is useless. Every time I put one on my baby, it fills up with poop! That's not doing anything!'
The genius jurist behind the ruling is judge Kathryn Mizelle, a 35-year-old appointed by the former president after he lost the 2020 election. At the time Mizelle received a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association and had "never tried a criminal or civil case.
Airlines Drop Masks And CDC Puts The People In Charge (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 20, 2022)

A little more context:

In a 59-page ruling issued Monday, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote that although the CDC said the mask mandate was required as a sanitation measure, "'sanitation' [refers] to measures that clean something, not ones that keep something clean. Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither 'sanitizes' the person wearing the mask nor 'sanitizes' the conveyance."
Decision on Mask Mandate 'Creating Chaos,' Says Public Health Advocate (MedPage Today, April 19, 2022)

Meanwhile in Cuba:

Google translation:

In Cuba, the trend in the behavior of the COVID-19 epidemic points towards a decrease in the number of confirmed cases. The prediction is an advance towards the control of the disease, although the appearance of new variants is not ruled out. It is something that shines a red light on the need not to lower our guard, not to lower our levels of risk perception.
This is how Dr. Raúl Guinovart Díaz, dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing of the University of Havana, reflected this Tuesday, from the Palace of the Revolution and supported by his usual forecast models, which stated that for the next ten days a decrease is expected in the number of confirmed cases and those hospitalized.
The prediction should not mean carelessness or forgetting that – although lethality due to COVID-19 on the Island has decreased much – there will always be very vulnerable people, for whom responsibility and the decision to be vigilant must prevail.
(...)
Dr. Pablo Feal Cañizares, director of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Unit of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), addressed the population's perception of risk in the face of COVID-19.
According to a study carried out in March 2022 in all the provinces – with the aim of evaluating the perception of risk – of the total sample, 4.6% showed an inadequate perception of the risk of becoming ill; while 64.3% showed an "average" perception; and 31.2%, an adequate approach. The numbers show, as the expert said, gaps to be filled, related to compliance with protection measures and knowledge about the disease.
Ante una epidemia que no termina, elevemos la percepción de riesgo - Para los próximos diez días se espera una disminución en la cifra de los casos confirmados, y de los hospitalizados (Granma.cu, April 19, 2022)

 

[dann]

Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla told reporters in Havana the Biden administration "has been carrying out intense efforts and exerting pressure on countries in the region to try to exclude Cuba" from the summit.
In fact, he claimed, Cuba "has already been excluded from all the preparations and working groups for the summit," including development of a new, Pan American health and resilience plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That is "something shameful, given Cuba's contribution in promoting health for its population and the region," Rodriguez said.
(...)
"There is no justification for excluding Cuba or any other country from this event that we have attended the last two editions," Rodriguez said while calling on U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken "to say in an honest way if Cuba will be invited" to the summit.
Cuba says U.S. seeking to exclude it from upcoming Summit of Americas (UPI, April 25, 2022)

It is rather obvious why the USA would like to exclude Cuba from any talks that touch upon the response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

 

[dann]

The UPI article was probably based on the Spanish version of this Cuban article:

A central axis, according to preparations for the event, will be health. And I must inform our people and international public opinion that there are currently negotiations underway, conducted in an unclear manner, with quite a few neoliberal elements, and many shortcomings, in relation to the real needs of the peoples regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the structural causes of precarious health systems that have led to tragic consequences and caused an extremely high number of deaths in our hemisphere, including the United States of America, and have avoided substantial cooperation and basic financing to address these consequences, and are now negotiating in an opaque manner a so-called Health and Resilience Action Plan for the Americas through the year 2030.
I must note that these negotiations are being held, in an obscure manner, with the exclusion of Cuba and other member states of the Pan American Health Organization, which are participating in these processes, in violation of their own mandates.
Cuba has always, in a modest but altruistic and persistent fashion, provided the possibility for international cooperation in health, which has been recognized worldwide.
There are Latin American vaccines against COVID-19 which are Cuban. The medical brigades that responded to the COVID emergency in the region, in the hemisphere in more than 50 countries on the planet, have been Cuban.
Cuba denounces U.S. government exclusion of Cuba from preparations for Ninth Summit of the Americas (Granma.cu, April 26, 2022)

 

[dann]

Now that Fauci has declared that the USA is 'out of the pandemic phase', there is every reason to ask Cuba for help. Its doctors and researchers have managed to fight the virus better than most other countries and are not about to abandon the fight in favor of delusional wishful thinking:

The legislator asked that organization for support to convene Cuban health professionals to help fight Covid-19 and other diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS, in association with US medical entities.
When I initially learned that 40 countries from five continents opened their doors to the medical community IN the island to cooperate in the response to the pandemic, I realized that the interest in saving lives is a matter of common interest, said the Alabama parliamentarian .
(...)
Sanders also called for promoting that young African-Americans be eligible and study at the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, from which more than 30,000 students from 118 countries have graduated.
Senator asks for Cuban medical brigade to come to the US (Prensa Latina, April 29, 2022)

Henry Reeve Brigade (Wikipedia)

 

[dann]

It is interesting to observe the outcome of Cuba's pandemic response since Nov 1, 2022, when the country was on the verge of finishing its vaccination campaign:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people: USA, Cuba (Our World in Data, Nov 1, 2021, to May 1, 2022)

 

[dann]

May 1st, 2022, in Havana

Led by the slogan, “Cuba Works and Lives,” Havana’s 2022 May Day parade was attended by more than 700,000 workers and students from across Havana, demonstrating both a joyful celebration and triumphant victory of the Cuban Revolution.
More than 5.5 million people celebrated throughout Cuba on May 1 in their respective provinces, for a total of 6 million people at events over the weekend.
It was a special celebration because of the parade’s cancellation the last two years due to COVID-19 restrictions. Cuba’s May Day parade is historically the largest in the world, and this year it came back with a roar in one of the largest turnouts seen in years.
Intense fuel shortages due to the U.S. blockade make transportation difficult — even so, people from all provinces of Cuba traveled to take part in this historic International Workers’ Day celebration.
(...)
The dedication to the youth of Cuba is seen in every sector of Cuban society, but most remarkably in the handling of COVID-19. Cuba was the first country to vaccinate children two years old and up, and — under the protection of a highly vaccinated society — in November, Cuba opened up all schools and daycare centers.
In stark contrast, the U.S. government’s for-profit, capitalist approach to COVID-19: the banning of mask mandates in schools, forcing children back to school and workers back to work despite low vaccination rates across the country, and so on, now has the United States well on the road to one million dead from COVID-19.
Over 5 million people march on May Day in Cuba, a country of 11 million (Liberation News, May 2, 2022)

I feared that a celebration of this size might give rise to more infections, but so far that doesn't seem to have been the case.
On the contrary, in fact: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people
And after a minor increase in the number of daily deaths in February, the number of daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people has been below 0.10 since Feb. 27, i.e. insignificant in comparison to most other countries.
Maybe Omicron is so contagious that it is a good idea to mask up even for outdoor celebrations like this one. In the photos, I see only one exception to the rule. Other photos from May 1 in Havana seem to confirm that everybody is masking up.

 

[dann]

And the number of daily new confirmed cases in Cuba is still decreasing even after the May 1 celebrations: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. The combination vaccinations and masking up seems to be what it takes, but it probably helps that most Cuban celebrations take place outdoors this time of the year.

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and today:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 8, USA 275.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.03, USA 0.90.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 753.61, USA 3,003.29.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 87.98, total 94.23; USA: fully 66.45, total 77.53.
Since it takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 321.32, USA 175.25.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.20, USA 0.08.
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide
The numbers from this thread for Dec 17, 2021, Jan 17, 2022, Feb 17, 2022, Mar 16, 2022 and April 17, 2022.

 

[dann]

Q&A about

Q: Take us a little bit into the logic of not going back to the kind of sanctions relief that the Obama administration, or I should say Obama-Biden administration, had in place at the end of their time in office. And what are you getting from the leverage of holding back on some of the sanctions relief?
(...)
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: But I’ll say that the crackdown by the Cuban regime after the July 11th protests were there for, I think, the world to see. And the sentences that were imposed on people that were just singing in the streets and asking for food and to have a greater say in the future of their country really shows the situation — the lack of respect for human rights on the island.
Background Press Call By Senior Administration Officials On New Cuba Policy (White House, May 17, 2022)

This corresponds to talking about the sentences imposed by the U.S. regime on peaceful protesters behaving like ordinary tourists in the Capitol building on Jan 6, 2021.
For some reason, the Nov 2021 protests, i.e. after the success of Cuba's vaccination program and not during the one Covid-19 wave that Cuba experienced, aren't mentioned.

 

[dann]

Frantic search for milk

The Communist government, nervous that the shortages could pose risks to the one-party system, is trying to stimulate agricultural production. “We have to improve things quickly,” Johana Odriozola, the vice minister of economy, acknowledged in an interview.
In Cuba, a frantic search for milk (WP, May 21, 2022)

Is it impossible for the mainstream media to consider that the Communist government is concerned simply because Cuban children don't get the milk they need?

WP does write that ...

It was one of the great promises of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. In a nation plagued by malnutrition, Fidel Castro pledged a liter of milk every day for every child. He enshrined a super-producing cow, Ubre Blanca, as a national hero. He was such a dairy nut that the CIA once tried to poison his daily milkshake.

... and yet, to a WP journalist, it can't simply be a question of keeping that promise because the government wants people to get milk. It must be because it fears "risks to the one-party system."

Which, I assume, is also the reason why the USA has instituted its blockade to help Cuban children get the milk they need ...