Six on The Rona: Despite U.S. warnings, Cuba’s medical diplomacy triumphs in the Caribbean during pandemic; As the world looks for coronavirus scapegoats, Muslims are blamed in India; Vietnam offers tough lessons for U.S. on coronavirus; How Ecuador
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"They are among more than 1,000 healthcare workers that Cuba has sent to 18 countries on three continents since the start of the deadly pandemic, according to Cuban press reports and official statements.
Jamaica Health Minister Christopher Tufton told the Miami Herald that the 140 Cuban doctors and nurses were brought in to boost the country’s health staff for COVID-19. “We lose 500 plus nurses each year from mass recruiting” from other countries, he said.
The arrival of Cuban healthcare workers to help on the front lines of the pandemic is seen as such a godsend among Caribbean nations that Haiti’s foreign ministry hinted on Twitter that the country was getting more Cuban doctors. Foreign Minister Claude Joseph later clarified to the Nouvelliste that 348 Cuban doctors and nurses already in Haiti will now be deployed throughout the country to help with COVID-19 patients.
This is not the first time Cuba has offered medical aid to the Caribbean.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said Cuba has been exporting its doctors and nurses for decades to help his country recover from hurricanes. Cuba has also provided scholarships for its nationals to study medicine in the island.
“We are friends of all and enemies of none. We are an extremely vulnerable micro state, and have little option but to accept assistance from all nations,” he said. “Those who would like us to do otherwise should undertake to fill the breach.”
The political message is clear, observers of the region say: Contrary to what the U.S. has been trying to demonstrate by having the doctors chased out of Brazil, Bolivia and other Latin American nations, Cuba’s medical brigades are still needed and appreciated.
St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister Timothy Harris welcomed “with love” the 34 Cuban doctors and nurses that arrived on March 28, two days after the Eastern Caribbean federation confirmed a pair of positive coronavirus cases.
He ended his message on Twitter: “PanCaribbean vision at work. Long live solidarity!”
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"News channels and some ruling-party officials rushed to blame Muslims for the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country after an Islamic missionary group in New Delhi emerged as a super-spreader. In recent weeks, Muslims have been assaulted, denied medical care and subjected to boycotts — all in the name of fear of the virus.
While India stands out for the wave of vitriol directed toward its Muslim community, it is by no means alone. In the United States and Europe, there have been reports of discrimination and attacks on people of Asian descent. In China, Africans have been evicted and refused entry to restaurants amid fears that foreigners could spark a new round of infections. In Pakistan, activists say that the Hazara ethnic minority has been unfairly blamed as the source of the virus."
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"Less than three months after the first case was confirmed on U.S. soil, more lives have now been lost in the United States from the pandemic than the 58,220 Americans who died over nearly two decades of fighting during the Vietnam War.
Coincidentally, the fall of Saigon 45 years ago this Thursday ended that conflict. But despite these milestones, in Vietnam many are focused on a very different marker: According to official figures, the country has recorded no new cases of domestic transmission of coronavirus in almost two weeks.
Despite its border with China, relatively low income, and population of 95 million, Vietnam is an outlier success story in the pandemic. It has 270 confirmed cases of the virus and no deaths. The country is beginning to lift the strict lockdown measures it began imposing in February, reopening restaurants and barber shops last week.
Vietnam has “basically put the pandemic under control,” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Tuesday. But this effective control has yet to be greeted with the global plaudits that many other nations have received, perhaps because Vietnam does not fit neatly with other success stories.
This is not a country known for its technology, like South Korea and Taiwan, and it is not a small, easily controllable space like Hong Kong or Iceland. It doesn’t have the charismatic leadership of New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Germany’s Angela Merkel or other female world leaders."
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