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Protests Erupt in Cuba

The number of cases increased in Cuba, but the country still has zero daily Covid-19 deaths.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba since March 30, 2022. A rise from 4.05 on July 14 to 7.69 on Aug 14 (most recent number).
For perspective: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba and the USA since March 30, 2022.

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and now:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 7.69, USA 337.27.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.0, USA 1.38.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 757.70, USA 3,077.24. Cuba has had the same number since May 11, 2022.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 88.68, total 94.96; USA: fully 67.30, total 78.75.
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 358.02, USA 182.57.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.78 (Aug 13), USA 0.04 (Aug 9).
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, April 17, 2022, May 17, 2022, June 17, 2022 and July 17, 2022.
 
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The number of daily new confirmed cases in Cuba has decreased since last month, but the country had one Covid-19 death in August, the first since May.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba since March 30, 2022. A drop from from 7.55 on Aug 16 to 1.90 on Sep 14 (most recent number).
For perspective: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba and the USA since March 30, 2022.

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and now:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 1.90, USA 187.44. Also a considerable decrease in the USA.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.0, USA 1.27.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 757.79, USA 3,125.80. On Aug 20, the Cuban Covid-19 death toll per million people rose from 757.70 to 757.79.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 88.75, total 95.07; USA: fully 67.66, total 79.19.
It takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, so the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 370.05, USA 184.57. Cuba has administered twice as many jabs per capita as the USA.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.22, USA 0.07 (Sep 13).
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide

The numbers in this thread from Dec 17, 2021, Jan 17, 2022, Feb 17, Mar 16, April 17, May 17, June 17, July 17, and Aug 17.
 
On Sunday, Sep 25, there is a referendum on a new family law in Cuba.
The new Family Code will be submitted to a popular referendum on Sunday, September 25 after a broad consultation process in which more than 6,480,000 Cubans participated.
Reasons to vote Yes for the new Family Code (Granma.cu, Sep 20, 2022)
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Los derechos ni se sancionan ni se censuran (Granma.cu, Sep 21, 2022)

As mentioned in another thread, Evangelical Homophobia in Cuba, it took a couple of years to get to this point.
 
I got back from Cuba earlier this week - boosted with the Cuban Soberana Plus vaccine. It turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined since the hurricane over the eastern provinces of Cuba made it impossible to get vaccinated in Havana.
However, I and two others, another Dane and a Swede, succeeded in getting the shot in Cienfuegos at a clinic catering to tourists, €45.
Sucursal SMC Cienfuegos - CSMC S.A. - 5ta Avenida, La Habana, Cuba. Teléfono +53 7209 0977.
I assume that it will be possible for foreigners to get vaccinated in Havana again when the city has returned to pre-hurricane conditions.
 
The number of daily new confirmed cases in Cuba has decreased since last month:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba since March 30, 2022. A drop from 1.90 on Sep 16 to 0.27 on Oct 16 (most recent number).
For perspective: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba and the USA since March 30, 2022.

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and now:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 0.27, USA 106.08. Also a decrease in the USA.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.0, USA 1.02.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 757.79, USA 3,160.58.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19, Nov 19, 2021 and now: Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 88.80, total 95.12; USA: fully 68.13, total 79.70.
It takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, so the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 374.94, USA 189.11.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.08 (Oct 14), USA 0.10 (Oct 11).
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide

The numbers in this thread from Dec 17, 2021, Jan 17, 2022, Feb 17, Mar 16, April 17, May 17, June 17, July 17, Aug 17, and Sep 17.
 
The Blockade

dudalb said:
Agreed, but blaming the embargo for Cuba's economic ills we just another way of denying that the Cuban ecnomic system,modeled after the Soviet System, has been a miserable falure.
One reason why I suport lifitng the embargos is that the Cuban Regime and it useful idiots will no longer be able to use that as an excuse.
Click to expand...


The alleged excuse:

Cuba will present resolution condemning the blockade at UN today (Granma.cu, Nov 3, 2022)

Cuba celebrates Thursday a new victory in its struggle against the U.S. blockade, by achieving overwhelming support in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for a resolution approved by 185 votes in favor, two against and two abstentions.
Overwhelming victory for Cuba at the UN: 185 countries vote against the blockade (Granma.cu, Nov 3, 2022)
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Since 2019, the United States government has escalated the fence against our country to an extreme dimension, more cruel and inhuman, to deliberately inflict the greatest possible damage on Cuban families.
In the first 14 months of President Joseph Biden, the damage caused by the blockade reached 6,364 million dollars, more than 15 million a day.
Between August 2021 and February 2022, they set a record, for just seven months, of $3.806 million. In the absence of the blockade, in that period our GDP could have grown by 4.5%.
The accumulated damages in more than 60 years, reach 154 thousand 217 million dollars, at current prices; and, at the value of gold, they amount to 1 billion 391 thousand 111 million, one million million 391 thousand 111 million. What would Cuba be like today, if it had had those resources? What else could we have done? What would our economy look like?
Cuba's case against the US blockade as put to the United Nations General Assembly vote (Cuba Solidarity UK, Nov 4, 2022)
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Heute, mehr als ein Jahr nach Beginn der groß angelegten Kampagne, gibt es nie mehr als drei positiv gemeldete Fälle, (an manchen Tagen wird überhaupt kein Fall gemeldet). Seit Monaten treten keine Todesfälle mehr auf, und die Auswirkungen der durch die gefährliche Omicron-Variante ausgelösten Welle wurden ohne Rückschläge überwunden.
Kubas COVID-19-Impfstrategie war ein durchschlagender Erfolg (Granma.cu, Nov 9, 2022)
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Today, more than a year after the large-scale vaccination campaign began, no more than three positive cases are reported - some days there are no reported cases at all. For months, the death toll has been zero, and the effects of the wave unleashed by the dangerous Omicron variant have been overcome with no setbacks.
Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccination strategy has been a resounding success


Since May, one (!) Covid-19 death has been confirmed, in August.
I assume that most of the reported infections at this point are found in incoming travellers, but the article doesn't say so.
 
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba since March 30, 2022. Oct 16: 0.27, Nov 17: 0.28.
For perspective: Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in Cuba and the USA since March 30, 2022. USA Nov 17: 110.61.

The SARS-CoV-2 numbers from Our World in Data, Nov 16, 2021, and now:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 0.28, USA 110.61. .
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.0, USA 0.79.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people Cuba 760.78, USA 3,182.16.

Vaccinations:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19, Nov 19, 2021 and now: Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 89.19, total 95.55; USA: fully 68.61, total 80.27.
It takes three jabs to be considered fully vaccinated in Cuba, and Cuba offers booster shots more often, so the difference is even bigger if we look at:
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 378.68, USA 194.73.
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 0.07 (Nov 8), USA 0.09 (Nov 8).
CNN's Tracking Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide

The numbers in this thread from Dec 17, 2021, Jan 17, 2022, Feb 17, Mar 16, April 17, May 17, June 17, July 17, Aug 17, Sep 17 and Oct 17.
 
dudalb said:
Agreed, but blaming the embargo for Cuba's economic ills we just another way of denying that the Cuban ecnomic system,modeled after the Soviet System, has been a miserable falure.
One reason why I suport lifitng the embargos is that the Cuban Regime and it useful idiots will no longer be able to use that as an excuse.
Click to expand...


No, the purpose of the blockade, i.e. to ruin the Cuban economy in order to ruin the standards of living of ordinary Cubans, has not been a failure. It just hasn't accomplished its objective, to make Cubans so dissatisfied with their government that they overthrow it. Most of them know what the U.S. blockade does to their country and to themselves. The rest of the world is also aware of this:

Currently, more than 190 nations maintain relations with Cuba, and only the U.S. punishes that country with its foreign policy," the representative of Azerbaijan stressed.
On behalf of the Central American Integration System (SICA), the representative of the Dominican Republic expressed solidarity with Cuba, which teaches the world to share.
Likewise, Singapore spoke on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and pointed out that this is the seventh year that the organization has intervened in the General Assembly urging the United States to immediately lift the blockade against Cuba, since the sanctions affect the welfare, health and development prospects of the Cuban people.
They also hinder humanitarian aid, especially in cases of natural disasters and events such as Hurricane Ian; they hinder world cooperation operations and limit regional relations.
Why doesn't the United States respect the international consensus against the blockade? (Granma.cu, Nov 21, 2022)
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The U.S. representative insists on saying that the blockade is maintained to "support the Cuban people" and that Washington does so in the "name of democracy." However, how can this be explained to the families of the children who cannot receive a prosthesis, a medicine, an operation on time? What support and democracy is he talking about?
How can the U.S. representative say that he feels concerned about the Cuban people when his government, at the worst moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, prevented our country from having access to treatments, medical oxygen and the purchase of raw materials to produce vaccines and pulmonary ventilators? That is neither support nor democracy, it is an act of genocide.
Counter-reply at the height of the courageous people of Cuba (Granma.cu, Nov 21, 2022)
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US-led panel exploring Cuba's solo development and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines calls for lowering barriers blocking global access to the country’s biotech innovations (EurekaAlert!, Oct 31, 2022)

November 3, 2022 – Cuba’s ability to develop homegrown COVID-19 vaccines and immunize most of its citizens should serve as a model for developing countries around the world dealing with public health emergencies, according to a new report.
The report was issued October 31 by the first U.S.-led scientific delegation to visit Cuba in five years. The delegation was organized by MEDICC (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba), a U.S.-based non-profit promoting health-related dialogue and collaboration.
(...)
The authors also noted that Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccination rate in children and adolescents was much greater and was achieved much earlier than any other country in the world, and that the emphasis on vaccinating kids—who often serve as significant vectors for spreading infectious diseases to populations more at risk, such as the elderly—should be considered by other countries to blunt transmission rates in the general population. The possibility of using Cuba’s SOBERANA Plus vaccine as a universal booster globally should also be explored, the report said.
Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccine success could serve as global model: report (Harvard T.H. Chan, School of Public Health, Nov 3, 2022)
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"As a model for developing countries," sure, but did industrialized countries fare so much better? Cuba's pandemic response can serve as a model for all countries around the world. It is not as if the 'developed' world has fared so much better than third-world countries during the (still ongoing) pandemic.
 
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Cuba produces its own vaccines, exports them and has one of the highest vaccine coverage ratios in the world. When it comes to pandemic outcomes, this seems to be paying off. Taking into account primary and booster vaccinations, Cuba is currently the most-vaccinated developing country in the world.
(...)
Cuba’s experience has been truly remarkable. The country stood out in terms of developing and producing its own vaccines. Thanks to that, it was able to ramp up vaccine coverage very quickly – a home bias advantage that other vaccine manufacturing nations have enjoyed. Success on the vaccination side seems to have resulted in some very good pandemic outcomes, especially on the mortality side. Other factors are of course at play, but the results are nevertheless impressive.
Cuba, one of the most-vaccinated countries (Pandem-ic.com, Dec 27, 2022)
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After a relatively slight (in comparison to most other countries) increase in the number of new registered infections, Cuba reintroduces face masks in public places indoors.

Las autoridades sanitarias cubanas recomiendan a la población usar nasobuco para entrar a centros comerciales; a ferias de ventas; a transportes públicos, y a espectáculos en cines, teatros, y a los que se realicen en espacios cerrados.
(...)
Otro dato de interés, al cual hizo referencia José Angel Portal Miranda, es que al cierre de la semana 51 se mantenían activos 138 casos, lo cual representó el aumento de un 43,8 % respecto a la semana precedente.
«La letalidad: 0,77», refirió el titular del Minsap, quien además hizo énfasis en que «no tenemos fallecidos en la semana; llevamos 18 semanas consecutivas sin reportar fallecidos por esta causa».
COVID-19: ante una transmisión que aumenta, acrecentar la responsabilidad (Granma.cu, Dec 27, 2022)
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Google translate:
The Cuban health authorities recommend that the population use a mask to enter shopping centers; to sales fairs; to public transport, and to shows in cinemas, theaters, and those that take place in closed spaces.
(...)
Another piece of information of interest, to which José Angel Portal Miranda referred, is that at the end of week 51, 138 cases remained active, which represented an increase of 43.8% compared to the previous week.
"Fatality: 0.77," said the MINSAP headline, who also emphasized that "we have no deaths in the week; We have gone 18 consecutive weeks without reporting deaths from this cause.
COVID-19: in the face of increasing transmission, increase responsibility
 
The Cuban vaccines against Covid-19 appear to be better than other vaccines at maintaining their immunogenic effect even when the virus mutates:

- How effective have Cuban vaccines proven to be against the Omicron variant?

-Cuban vaccines have proven to be effective against the Omicron variant, the most infectious variant of this disease known so far.
"Epidemiological evidence proves it. In Cuba, unlike most countries in the world, the peak of infections with the Omicron variant and its subvariants have been lower when compared to the previous ones, including the peak with Delta.
"Undoubtedly, the effectiveness of the vaccines created by our scientists against these new SARS-COV-2 strains and the vaccination strategy have a lot to do with this behavior on the island.
"We have found, in laboratory studies done in Cuba and in other nations, that the antibodies induced by Cuban vaccines neutralize the Omicron variant. While some vaccines report a decrease of up to 20 times in their capacity to neutralize the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2, compared to the original, Cuban vaccines only decrease this neutralization capacity by two times.
"This phenomenon we are observing has its explanation in the nature of the antigen we use and the very design of our vaccines.
"The Abdala and Soberana vaccines use the RBD antigen, that is, the spike (S) protein region, which binds to the virus receptor in the cell.
"The RBD antigen has been found to induce neutralizing antibodies against a conserved region of that protein among the different variants of the virus, possibly because of the importance of that region in the functionality of the virus; therefore, mutations in this area of the protein are not selected. "However, when immunized with the complete spike (S) protein, this conserved region is not immunodominant, in other words, antibodies are preferentially induced against other areas of the protein, in which there is a high rate of mutations, and a process of selection of variants that escape recognition by neutralizing antibodies occurs.
"Most of the vaccines currently on the market use the spike (S) protein as antigen, which has generated the phenomenon of successive pandemic peaks resulting from the appearance of variants of the virus that escape the immunity generated by these vaccines."
How is the international recognition, and the evaluation by WHO, of Cuban vaccines against COVID-19 going? (Granma.cu, Jan 5, 2023)
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Since I got a booster shot with the Cuban Soberana Plus vaccine in October 2022, I sure hope that it has provided me with some protection against the most recent variants. The current Danish numbers are bloody awful:

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average.
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
 
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A good question:

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez presided over the usual meeting of experts and scientists on health issues on Tuesday afternoon, in which a review was made of everything undertaken during 2022 by Cuban science in the field of health.
(...)
In his opinion, the high levels of development shown by those who have excelled in the task of defending health were what made it possible "to face a complex problem efficiently and effectively, such as COVID-19". And then he shared questions that directly gravitate on the wellbeing of Cubans:
(...)
"How do we turn this example, in the shortest possible time (the one carried out by Cuban science in the field of health), into something that is the rule and not the exception? He defined the topic as a learning that cannot be left out of hand; because "it is extremely eloquent how by making use of science and innovation we were able to face a complex problem (that of COVID-19), which today continues to be complex for the world".
(...)
On COVID-19, which is still "quite present" at the global level, the Head of State praised the ways in which Cuba chose "the approach of inclusive systems, of what is emancipatory". The pandemic, the dignitary reflected, called into question neoliberal thinking: with it "the gaps that existed between poor and rich countries were demonstrated", and the inadequacies of the planet's health systems came to light in all their crudeness.
Díaz-Canel presides over meeting with Cuban experts and scientists (Granma.cu, Jan 11, 2023)
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How to keep a pandemic at bay - or: Learning NOT to live with the virus

COVID-19 has not disappeared
(...)
[José Angel] Portal Miranda [Minister of Public Health of Cuba] called for extreme hygiene and compliance with distancing and personal protection measures in places where activities involving concentration of people are carried out.
It is essential to give priority to the use of face masks, especially by vulnerable people, he added, while reiterating that you should not go to work, school or social events if you have respiratory symptoms.
As part of the actions of the health system, a new booster dose for pregnant women, women who are still lactating, people over 70 and others who could be vulnerable due to their pathologies or workplaces, recalled the Minister, recently began to be applied.
According to him, he said, the second booster dose will also be completed for people between the ages of 19 and 48 who have not received it.
(...)
Portal Miranda assured that at the end of the first week of this 2023, 135 positive patients were diagnosed, 27 less than in the previous seven days; however, he emphasized the importance of reinforcing compliance with virus containment measures.
At the end of 2022, Cuba reported 145,545 positive patients for COVID-19 —diagnosed during the year—, a figure that meant a considerable reduction in infections compared to 2021, the year in which 954,417 people were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 in the country.
La COVID-19 no ha desaparecido (Juventud Rebelde, Jan 12, 2023)
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I assume that this is the reason why the number of daily vaccinations in Cuba is beginning to rise again, a necessity, along with the other precautions mentioned above, if the country is to continue to keep people from dying of Covid-19.

As for the rest of the world:
When will they ever learn?!
 
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