Thursday, November 25, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, November 25, 2021

With 100 percent of the country having taken at least one vaccine dose by the end of last month, the country reopened its borders on November 15 to tourism, roughly a tenth of its economy, and has reopened schools. This makes Cuba an outlier among low-income countries, which have vaccinated only 2.8 percent of their combined populations. This is owed largely to vaccine hoarding by the developed world and their jealous guarding of patent monopolies, which bar poorer countries from developing generic versions of the vaccines that were produced through public funding in the first place.
 
                                                                            *************************** 
 
Several aspects make Cuba’s vaccines unique besides their country of origin, according to Helen Yaffe, senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow. At the heart of it is Cuba’s decision to pursue a more traditional protein vaccine rather than the more experimental mRNA technology used for the COVID vaccines we’ve become familiar with, which had been in development for decades before the onset of the pandemic led to a breakthrough.

Because of this, Cuba’s vaccine can be kept in a fridge or even at room temperature, as opposed to the subpolar temperatures the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at or the freezer temperatures Moderna’s vaccine requires. “In the Global South, where huge amounts of the population have no access to electricity, it’s just another technological obstacle,” ....
 
Later on, the author writes:
 
There’s one more factor that sets the Cuban vaccine apart. “The Cuban vaccine is 100 percent entirely a product of a public biotech sector,” says Yaffe.

While in the United States and other developed countries, lifesaving medicines are developed thanks largely to public funding before their profits and distribution are ruthlessly privatized for corporate enrichment, Cuba’s biotech sector is wholly publicly owned and funded. That means Cuba has de-commodified a vital human resource — the exact opposite policy direction that we’ve seen in these last four decades of neoliberalism.
  • US Media’s BLATANT Lies About Cuba & Colombia features a rather cynical discussion by Jimmy Dore and Ben Norton (The Grayzone) by major US media regarding initially the recent elections in Nicaragua, but concentrates on their reporting of events in Cuba and Columbia--from Dore's channel on YouTube (40:01).
During lockdown in Sydney, Australia, Matt Austin produced his first album, "I Bloody Told You This Would Happen!", a collection of 11 songs on the critical issues we are facing under the Covid mandates. His description: 

"When people don't understand how democracy works, democracy doesn't work.
Hidden corruption of 'free' media; the lobby industry; State infiltration of activist groups; mass surveillance by government institutions and Big Tech; centralized power; Digital ID's and a Central Bank Digital Currency; Coerced acquiescence, propaganda and censorship.

  • Science Update: U.S. Military Unprepared for Climate Change featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--12:49), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout his career on the climate crisis. (Note: McPherson reads various excerpts from major media corporations and makes cynical comments on most of them.)