Will democracies recognize that Communist China is a menace, not a trusted partner?

“In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.” - Alexander Solzhenitsyn 

Xi Jinping or Mao Ze Dong: Who will end up being the greatest mass murderer?

Original Source: Freedom Synergy

There is a willful blindness when dealing with China’s dictatorship that is now costing the world much in the way of lives and treasure.

This Communist regime took power in 1949 and to reorganize the Chinese populace, its agricultural and industrial production along communist ideological lines created a mass famine and a death toll of 30 million Chinese between 1959 and 1961that it called the Great Leap Forward. 

In the midst of it communist China exported 9.6 million tons of grain, that accounted for 20% of famine deaths. Seven million more were killed between 1966 and 1976 in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 

During “liberalization”, another half million people were killed, including students and workers massacred in June 1989. A British diplomatic cable, declassified in 2017, revealed that at least 10,000 were killed in the Chinese army's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Despite this history, Democracies pursued a policy of empowering this regime, providing foreign direct investment, turning it into an economic powerhouse. 

They believed the monstrous regime would change for the better, they were wrong.

China covered up a November 2002 outbreak of an "atypical pneumonia called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)."  Officials became aware of the illness in December 2002 and in January 2003, reports were marked top secret, and anyone who broke the silence on the outbreak would risk punishment for leaking state secrets. Because of the delay in making it public, the SARS outbreak spread to 8,096 people in 26 countries, killing 774 before it was contained.

This pattern was repeated in the November 2019 SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Wuhan, identified by physicians in December 2019, and covered up by the communist hierarchy, who ordered test results destroyed. On December 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang “who sounded the first alarms and released initial evidence online” was punished by the Chinese government for releasing the information. He allegedly perished from the Wuhan virus.” 

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on March 26, 2020 that in January 2020 and continuing through February the "Chinese government-backed global property giant Greenland Group were instructed to put their normal work on hold and source bulk supplies of essential medical items to ship back to China."  This was a worldwide effort "sourcing bulk supplies of surgical masks, thermometers, antibacterial wipes, hand sanitizers, gloves and [acetaminophen] for shipping." ... "According to a company newsletter, the Greenland Group sourced 3 million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of protective gloves from "Australia, Canada, Turkey and other countries"  

On January 11, 2020 the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission resumed updating infection cases of the new virus after suspending reports for several days. But the Chinese dictatorship repeated its claim that there had been no medical worker infections and that there was no evidence of human transmission, and reported that the number of confirmed cases had dropped to 41. On January 22, 2020 official Chinese TV finally recognizes that the disease was spreading from person-to-person. Two days later, Wuhan, a city of 11 million, was placed on lock down.

Antonio Regalado writing in Technology Review on March 4, 2020 reported that genetic sequencing research showed that the first cases of Coronavirus entered Europe and the United States from China as early as mid-January when both Beijing and the World Health Organization were denying the severity of the outbreak. SARS-CoV-2 has spread to over 721,903 individuals in 186 countries with 33,996 dead and climbing. 

Nevertheless on January 23rd the World Health Organization (WHO), that based its response on reports provided by Beijing, said “novel coronavirus is not a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).” Seven days later, WHO finally declared the Wuhan Virus a PHEIC, but continued to defend the Chinese response as exemplary.

On February 1, 2020 the United States  announced that it would "deny entry to all foreign visitors who had recently been in China."  The head of WHO criticized the measure stating it, "can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies."  On February 3, 2020, China accused the United States of creating and spreading fear because it had closed entry to recent foreign visitors to China.

On February 3, 2020 news appears in Mother Jones that the Russians were engaged in a disinformation campaign charging that the United States was to blame for the Coronavirus outbreak in Cuba.

Beijing began an effort to sell aide, it had stockpiled, around the world in a highly visible manner in an effort to present itself as humanitarian. However, between 70 to 80% of  the COVID-19 test kits that China firms sold to Spain, the Czech Republic, and Turkey were defective and sparked outrage in these countries.     

The New York Times reported on February 28, 2020 that China was spinning that it was the leader in responding to the Coronavirus outbreak, and accused the United States and South Korea of responding too slowly.  Foreign Policy reported on March 2nd that in the prior week the Chinese had also been peddling that the United States was responsible for starting the pandemic, echoing earlier Russian disinformation.  

China claims it has the outbreak under control, but in Wuhan there are still hours long lines to collect the ashes of their dead loved ones.

The consequences in lives lost and wealth destroyed by this pandemic will take some time to calculate, but at this early date point to large numbers on both counts.

Will democracies learn their lesson that empowering China, a regime that has murdered tens of millions of its own people, and systematically lies about dangerous epidemics should not be legitimized or economically empowered or will short term greed triumph again?

Cuba and China: A tale of two viral outbreaks

Trouble with China, North Korea, Cuba, and other communist dictatorships is that mendacity is part of their ideology, and there is no counterbalance in a totalitarian regime to hold them to account in the midst of an outbreak of disease.

Regimes in China and Cuba both seek political advantage in viral outbreaks

Pandemics have been with us throughout human history, but totalitarian regimes are a recent phenomenon. Both Cuba and China are totalitarian regimes and have a common playbook, and it can be seen with their responses to two recent viral outbreaks. It does not put people first, but the interests of their respective dictatorships.

First, let us briefly examine these two viruses and then how Cuban and Chinese officials responded to each of them.

Zika virus was identified in the Ziika Forest of Uganda in 1947 and spent decades spreading eastward through Asia and reaching the Americas with a major outbreak in 2015 -2017 that reached Cuba.

Zika virus

The Wuhan virus (SARS-CoV-2) the cause of a mysterious viral pneumonia cluster that first emerged in mid-November 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of Central China’s Hubei province was identified in December 2019 and has now spread around the world in the span of a few months.

Wuhan virus

Responses by Cuba and China although at different ends of a viral outbreak, with different characteristics, including mortality and rate of spread, are similar in how regimes covered up the severity of the epidemic in their respective countries, punishing whistleblowers, and with the aid of international organizations and media outlets preserving the narrative that they are competent administrators with an effective response to a viral outbreak.

The Cuban response to Zika 2015- 2017
Countries across the Western hemisphere reported outbreaks of Zika to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015 - 2016 and travel advisories were issued. A WHO map showed Caribbean islands surrounding Cuba all having some level of a Zika outbreak, but Cuba remained clear.

 February 2, 2016: The Nation published “Zika Is Circling Cuba. What Will Happen When It Lands?” by Greg Grandin that also contained the subtitle “Cuba’s public-health campaigns are famously aggressive—but so is the Zika virus.” The author mentions that “[o]ver in Cuba, Zika has yet to make an appearance. It’s circling. There have been cases in Haiti, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and other Caribbean islands.”

The Nation author did not mention that the Cuban government in 1997 covered up a dengue outbreak, jailing a Cuban doctor who had gone public for “enemy propaganda.” Amnesty International provided additional detail on what had happened.

Dr  Desi  Mendoza  Rivero,  president of the Santiago  de  Cuba  Independent  Medical  Association, ... had been detained on 25 June 1997 in Santiago de Cuba, after making statements, which were disseminated by foreign media, about an epidemic of dengue fever in Santiago de Cuba  which,  according  to  him,  had  caused  several  deaths.  He  reportedly  accused  the authorities  of  covering  up  the  true  extent  of  the  epidemic  and  of  not  taking  sufficient measures to control it. He was brought to trial on 18 November 1997 and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, charged with "enemy propaganda."

Instead the magazine article claimed that “when dengue and chikungunya began to spread, the government stepped up its efforts at vector control, committed to contain any outbreak that might scare visitors away.” Grandin should read Katherine Hirschfeld's Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898, to obtain a fresh perspective from an academic.

February 23, 2016: Raul Castro announced that he was dispatching the Cuban military to keep Zika out of Cuba, and that the island had yet to report a single case of the disease.

September 2, 2016: The Associated Press reported on the regime’s containment efforts. “Cuba is among the few countries in the Western Hemisphere that have so far prevented significant spread of the disease blamed for birth defects in thousands of children. Only three people have caught Zika in Cuba.”

August 2, 2017: The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene published the paper “Why Did Zika Not Explode in Cuba?” citing “Cuba’s early and successful response to Zika, grounded in the country’s long-standing dengue prevention and control program, serves as a model of rapid mobilization of intersectoral efforts.” It also ignored reports that Cuba had jailed doctors and covered up prior epidemics.

News stories of Zika transmissions with a Cuba link should have raised questions. The first case of sexually transmitted Zika reported to the Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County on August 1, 2017 was by a person whose partner had returned from Cuba with Zika symptoms.

January 2019: The New Scientist broke the news that "thousands of Zika virus cases went unreported in Cuba in 2017, according to an analysis of data on travelers to the Caribbean island. Veiling them may have led to many other cases that year."

Microcephaly is a birth defect associated with Zika

Yale School of Public Health’s Nathan Grubaugh and his colleagues estimated that the total cases of Zika in Cuba in 2017 alone would have been 5,700, and added that the “2017 Zika outbreak in Cuba was similar in size to the known 2016 outbreaks in countries with similar population sizes.”

Duane Gubler at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore said “Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious, and Zika is only mildly symptomatic in adults.” Zika can trigger paralysis (Guillain-Barré Syndrome), and in pregnant women, it may cause subsequent and severe birth defects in their babies such as microcephaly (abnormally small heads and brains that can require life-long specialized care).

Did the World Health Organization (WHO) call the Castro regime to account for this failure in reporting or address the dismal state of healthcare for the average Cuban?

Honored to join President Miguel Díaz-Canel for the opening of #CubaSalud2018. Visiting #Cuba reminds me that #HealthForAll is not a dream for the future, it’s not just an aspiration; it’s a reality now. Cuba es un ejemplo para el mundo. ¡Queremos y tendremos #SaludParaTodos! pic.twitter.com/nfP82LrYNV

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 24, 2018

The Chinese response to Wuhan virus 2019-2020
Caixin Media Company Ltd., a Beijing-based media group founded in 2010, has been pushing the limits of free speech in China with hard hitting investigative journalism that has taken a hard look at how the response to the Wuhan virus initially unfolded.

The chronology of what happened from mid-November 2019 through February 1st is taken primarily from their reporting.

Initial case of Wuhan virus was traced back to November 17, 2019.

Test results from multiple labs in December 2019 suggested there was an outbreak of a new virus with an “alarming similarity to the deadly SARS coronavirus that killed nearly 800 people between 2002 and 2003.”

Chinese doctors and scientists who were investigating the outbreak and warning of the danger were silenced and told to destroy samples, cease releasing test results and information about them. Those who continued to speak out suffered the consequences.

December 30, 2019: Dr. Li Wenliang “was one of several in Wuhan who sounded the first alarms and released initial evidence online. Li, who was punished by the Chinese government for releasing the information, allegedly perished from the Wuhan virus five weeks later.”

Dr. Li Wenliang

January 1, 2020: An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission ordered companies that were sequencing genomes of samples from Wuhan related to the new disease be stopped, the samples destroyed, and to “immediately cease releasing test results and information about the tests.”

Whistle-blowers arrested for warning about SARS-CoV-2

January 3, 2020: China’s National Health Commission (NHC), the communist regime’s top health authority, ordered institutions not to publish information related to the Wuhan virus, “and ordered labs to transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions, or to destroy them. The order, which Caixin has seen, did not specify any designated testing institutions.”

January 9, 2020: Chinese authorities announced that a novel coronavirus was behind Wuhan’s viral pneumonia outbreak. Transmissibility of the virus was downplayed, leaving the public unaware of the imminent danger.

January 11, 2020: Wuhan Municipal Health Commission resumed updating infection cases of the new virus after suspending reports for several days. But the government repeated its claim that there had been no medical worker infections and that there was no evidence of human transmission, and reported that the number of confirmed cases had dropped to 41.

January 14, 2020 WHO reports no evidence of human to human transmission

According to Ho-fung Hung, Professor in Political Economy at the Department of Sociology & School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in his article "Holding Beijing Accountable For The Coronavirus Is Not Racist" published in the Journal of Political Risk,"Genetic sequencing research shows that the first cases of Coronavirus in Europe and the US entered from China as early as mid-January when Beijing was still busy covering up about the disease and assuring the world nothing serious was going on."

January 20, 2020: Zhong Nanshan, a leading authority on respiratory health who came to national attention in his role fighting SARS, confirmed in a TV interview that the disease was spreading from person-to-person.

Two days later, Wuhan, a city of 11 million, was placed in lockdown.

January 23, 2020: World Health Organization (WHO), that had based its response on reports provided by the Chinese government, said “novel coronavirus is not a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).”

January 30, 2020: WHO declared the Wuhan Virus a PHEIC, but continued to defend the Chinese response as exemplary, despite the previous months cover-up and spread of the virus around the world.

I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of #2019nCoV, not because of what is happening in #China, but because of what is happening in other countries.https://t.co/HNrxyGeoBA

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 30, 2020

On February 3, Xi Jinping in a speech to the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee emphasized the importance of “taking the initiative to influence international opinion” about the epidemic. "Since then," according to Professor Ho-fung Hung of Johns Hopkins University, "Chinese official media has been diligently criticizing foreign governments’ vigilance against the disease as overreaction and racism.. Ironically, Beijing chastised foreign governments for restricting travelers from China while it was itself putting tens of millions of Chinese citizens in lockdown."

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying "spread the misleading and unscientific notion that that the Coronavirus was less severe than the common flu in the US."  This shifted, but even a month later on March 4, 2020 the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman continued to talked down the severity of the outbreak, "The fact is that according to media reports, the 2009 H1N1 flu had a mortality rate of 17.4%. The mortality rate of MERS of 2012 was 34.4% and Ebola 40.4%. With China’s unrelenting efforts, the 2019-nCoV mortality rate in China is about 2.1%, much lower than the figures above. Since February 1, cured cases began to outnumber deaths. As of 12am February 3, a total of 632 patients have been cured and discharged. We have the confidence and the capability to win this battle."

Marcus Kolga in the March 20th essay "When will the Chinese government be held accountable for the spread of coronavirus?" raises a number of issues which are cited below with minor changes.

In contrast, Taiwan identified the outbreak and banned flights from Hubei before the end of 2019.
China did not identify the outbreak or limit flights until late January. During that time span five million people left Hubei, and the disease spread throughout China and the world.

Had China acted when Taiwan took action, the spread of the virus could have been reduced by 95 per cent. Thousands of lives, in China and around the world, would have been saved had China’s regime put aside its politics and acted swiftly.

Both the regimes in Cuba and China covered up the spread of viral outbreaks in their countries endangering lives to maintain the false narrative of superior health care. The two examples listed below are the most recent, but there have been others by both China and Cuba.

They continue to push these narratives in the midst of a global pandemic that may cost tens of millions of lives, and too many are willing to repeat their lies guaranteeing continued wrongdoing.

In many ways, #China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response. Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it. #2019nCoVhttps://t.co/GdUQZGvzkd

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 30, 2020

More examples of this "new standard of outbreak response" and archeologists of a future sentient species on Earth will be wondering how Homo Sapiens went extinct in the early 21st century.

Cuba, China, and the Coronavirus cover-up

Breaking through the false narrative to save lives

Cuban healthcare facilities are in a poor state.

Taken and updated from CubaBrief

Reuters reported the claim made by the official press on March 11, 2020 that "four Italian tourists who were staying at a hostel in the southern town of Trinidad after arriving at Havana airport on Monday had presented respiratory symptoms and were taken to a hospital on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the hospital confirmed that three of the tourists had tested positive for the coronavirus, the broadcaster said."

Prior to this, the Cuban government claimed that it had no cases, and claimed to be mobilized and prepared. On March 6, 2020 Granma, the official communist newspaper of Cuba, made the claim that "to date, no cases of Coronavirus ( Covid-19 ) have been confirmed in Cuba." Presently, there are cases in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Spain, the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, and many other places. Regime officials claim to be ready if and when an outbreak takes place. At the same time officials of the Castro regime have reported that there is a shortage of soap and detergent in Cuba that will not be alleviated until May - June 2020.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending a number of measures, two of which are: washing your hands regularly, and maintaining social distancing. (Maintain at least 1 metre [3 feet] distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.) There is a shortage in Cuba of the ingredients needed to wash your hands, and a housing shortage. Cubans live one on top of another in tight spaces. This is not sufficient for a good public health response.

Cuba has covered up epidemics in the past targeting doctors and journalists who speak out, just like in China We have witnessed in China how the communist regime covered up the coronavirus outbreak making it worse. Doctors and journalists who tried to warn about the coronavirus were arrested. Is this something to be congratulated or declared a huge achievement?

The Castro regime has done the same thing in Cuba during other outbreaks, and endangered lives in the process.

In 1997 a Cuban doctor was silenced for warning about a deadly dengue epidemic. Dr Desi Mendoza Rivero, married with four children at the time, was arrested on June 25, 1997. On November 28, 1997 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for "enemy propaganda." Amnesty International declared Dr. Mendoza Rivero a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his freedom. He was released on November 20, 1998 due to health reasons following the visit of the Spanish Foreign Minister, under the condition that he leave Cuba for exile in Spain.

First official report to the World Health Organization of the dengue outbreak was six months after initial identification made by the jailed and later forcibly exiled physician. Mendoza Rivero's reports were eventually confirmed. This episode would have a chilling effect on other doctors coming forward.

News of a cholera outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of an independent reporter in the island. Calixto Martinez, the independent Cuban journalist who broke the story was jailed. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with cholera in Havana. The Cuban government stated that it had it under control and on August 28, 2012 said the outbreak was over.

In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists were identified who had contracted cholera in Cuba. On August 22, 2013 Reuters reported that Cuba was still struggling with cholera outbreaks in various provinces.

In the August 22, 2019 The New York Times article by Carl Zimmer, "Zika Was Soaring Across Cuba. Few Outside the Country Knew", the newspaper tries to shift the blame for an unreported outbreak of zika in Cuba in 2017 on a reporting glitch. This ignored a decades long government pattern of covering up epidemics.

"Until now, the Pan American Health Organization had no record of any Zika infection in Cuba in 2017, much less an outbreak. Following inquiries by The New York Times about the new study, published in the journal Cell, officials acknowledged that they had failed to tally 1,384 cases reported by Cuban officials that year. [...] Officials at P.A.H.O., an arm of the World Health Organization, blamed the failure to publish timely data on the Cuba outbreak on a “technical glitch.” The information was held in a database, they said, but not visible on the website. By Thursday afternoon, the website had been updated."

On September 2, 2016 the Associated Press reports that Cuba had "remarkable success in containing Zika virus." This report made no mention of the regime's past history of covering up epidemics. On January 8, 2019 New Scientist reported: "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017."

 Reality of Cuba's healthcare system
Cuba has a two tiered health care system one tier for the nomenklatura and foreign tourists with hard currency that offers care with modern equipment and fully stocked pharmacies, then there is a second tier which is for the rest with broken down equipment, run down buildings and rooms, scarce supplies, a lack of hygiene, the denial of certain services and lengthy wait times. Healthcare professionals are poorly paid and lack food.

There are serious consequences for travelers to Cuba when they are not properly informed with what to expect with Cuba's public health failures and the disastrous state of Cuban healthcare. Not to mention a hefty bill for catching Cholera while on vacation, or worse yet discovering that you had been exposed to Zika virus when your child is born with microcephaly, a serious birth defect.

Reports that travelers that passed through Cuba tested positive for coronavirus have already emerged, but the Cuban government continues to maintain the claim that the country is without the illness..
The healthcare claims about Cuba made by many who should know better are but one of the many myths propagated by the Castro regime that do not hold up under scrutiny.

Hospital bed in Cuba

What to do?
Call on civil society in and out of the country to provide soap and detergent to Cubans on the island. Tell the Cuban government to get out of the way. Now is not a time to profit off of human need but help each other.  The Castro regime, like their Chinese counterpart, cannot be trusted.

The Conversation on March 6, 2020 published  a must read article titled "China’s coronavirus cover-up: how censorship and propaganda obstructed the truth" that also contains a video of Chinese nationals trying to circumvent repression and censorship that is both heart breaking and compelling.  Sadly, Cuban nationals are suffering the same type of practices in Cuba.

Tourists and travel to Cuba: What the travel agencies don't tell you about health and hygiene

 In July 2013 an Italian tourist returned from Cuba with severe renal failure due to Cholera. New York high school teacher Alfredo Gómez contracted cholera during a family visit to Havana during the summer of 2013 and was billed $4,700 from the government hospital. A total of 12 tourists have been identified who have contracted cholera in Cuba.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/26/3587434/cuba-reports-more-cholera-among.html#storylink=cpy

Cholera patients in Cuba (CNN)

Cuba is normally safe as long as you are reasonably careful about what you eat and drink. The common travel-related diseases, such as dysentery and hepatitis, are acquired by the consumption of contaminated food and water. While Cuba has a relatively low incidence of HIV any visitors should take obvious precautions if engaging in intimate relations on the island.
Mosquito born illnesses are not a significant concern on most of Cuba although you should be aware when there is a periodic outbreak of dengue. Sand flies can be a serious irritant on certain beaches but this is to be expected as the price of paradise!
Tap water in Cuba is not considered as reasonably safe to drink. Most Cuban households will boil water before drinking and foreigners should follow this procedure unless you have good quality purification filters. - Visit Cuba FAQs

Compared to the rosy descriptions offered on crime in Cuba by the travel industry, the advisories above are a little better but there is still a lot that is left out. First, the claim that Cuba has a low incidence of HIV is based on government provided statistics. Secondly, there is no mention of the Cholera out break that was announced in July of 2012 and is still ongoing across the island with official reports emerging from Camaguey, Granma, Guantanamo, Havana, and Santiago de Cuba.

This cholera outbreak needs to be placed in context. The current Cuban government, in power over the past 55 years, claims to be a healthcare super power. The current cholera outbreak is the first one in Cuba in 130 years. That is to say that the last cholera epidemic was while Cuba was still a Spanish colony. During Cuba's Republican era beginning in 1902 sanitation and hygiene were decent enough that cholera was not an issue.

Complicating the deterioration in the healthcare infrastructure is also the Cuban government's lack of candor in reporting on outbreaks of contagious diseases such as cholera and dengue. International media in Cuba are cautious about reporting bad news from Cuba. Journalists in Cuba have ample reason to fear being expelled having seen colleagues such as Chicago Tribune's Gary Marx, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of Mexico's El Universal all expelled in 2007 from Cuba for offering reporting that although bending over backwards not to offend still ran afoul of the regime.

News of the outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of the outlawed independent press in the island. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with Cholera in Havana. The dictatorship states that it has it under control.  Calixto Martinez, the independent journalist who reported the story on July 13, 2012, was imprisoned in September of 2012 in horrible conditions and released in April of 2013 for informing the public about the healthcare threat and the poor government response. Amnesty International had declared him a prisoner of conscience in January of 2013.

Pan American Health Organization reported that Cuban officials informed on September 27, 2013 that there have been 678 cases of cholera and 3 deaths but now claim that there are no new cases reported as of October 1, 2013. 

The Cuban regime made the same claim that the outbreak was over more than a year earlier on August 29, 2012 when they admitted that there had been 417 cholera cases and 3 cholera deaths.

An employee of the public health ministry, "who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment to the media," told Reuters on August 22, 2013: "There is cholera in various places and you can imagine we are having a very busy summer ..."Many of us think the government should stop keeping it a secret."

This is not the first time that someone suffered for speaking out to protect the public from an epidemic or that the Cuban government has tried to cover it up.

In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison for enemy propaganda and called a liar. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The Cuban government eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic.

Hospital in Cuba

"The Cuban government has established a for-profit medical system for foreigners called SERVIMED, which is entirely separate from the free, not-for-profit system that takes care of Cuban citizens. There are more than 40 SERVIMED facilities throughout the country including in all of the major tourism centers. The major clinic for foreigners in Havana is the Cira Garcia one in Miramar.
In the event of an accident or other emergency foreigners may be taken to the nearest accident and emergency center, which may be at a Cuban state hospital. Conditions here at least aesthetically are likely to be below expectations for many foreigners although the standard of care is typically very good from the doctors. Once a foreign patient can be moved typically he will be transferred to a SERVIMED clinic such as Cira Garcia in Havana, which is set up to deal with foreigners." - Visit Cuba FAQs

Travel agencies also claim that Cuban healthcare is adequate but that depends on where you wind up. There is a two tiered health care system as they describe above, and Cubans will tell you that the standard of care and hygiene at the hospitals for nationals is terrible not to mention the chronic shortages.

Katherine Hirschfeld, an anthropologist, in Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898 writes how her idealistic preconceptions were dashed by 'discrepancies between rhetoric and reality,' she observed a repressive, bureaucratized and secretive system, long on 'militarization' and short on patients' rights. In a January 10, 2008 article in The Miami Herald, "Author disputes Cuban healthcare 'myths'"reported on her first hand experience with the Cuban healthcare system:

Her stays were mostly in Santiago, from 1996 through 1998, when she was a graduate student at Emory University and Cuba was in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic that the government tried to hush up. When she experienced the symptoms -- aching joints, fever, nausea, sore throat -- she was taken to a Santiago hospital and placed in a large ward guarded by a man with a gun. She asked to make a phone call to tell people where she was. The guard said there were no working phones.
' `Oh my God,' I thought to myself. 'This place doesn't exist,' '' at least not officially, because the epidemic was a state secret. During her stay, she says she never saw a doctor. She was given one pill -- a vitamin. Fortunately, she had a mild case. Because there were few nurses, she and other patients who were able did what they could for the sickest, especially those who were bleeding or vomiting.

 This is again another reminder that Cuba is unlike any other country in the Western hemisphere because it is a totalitarian communist dictatorship that has more in common with North Korea than it does Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic. The failure of the travel industry to take this into account when reporting on Cuba is not only a travesty but a disservice to their clientele.

Cholera in Cuba: Regime spin continues as body count rises

Totalitarian regimes lie and in a healthcare crisis that means more people die

Cholera and totalitarianism: a dangerous combination

Last wrote about this in September, but the continued propaganda offensive by the dictatorship to claim that the cholera outbreak in Cuba is over but the reality on the ground necessitates speaking out.

There is also now the need to mention that in addition to cholera dissidents are now reporting that dengue has returned in force and is not being reported in the official press.

Pan American Health Organization now reports that Cuban authorities informed on September 27, 2013 that there have been 678 cases of cholera and 3 deaths but now claim that there are no new cases reported as of October 1, 2013. 

The Cuban regime made the same claim that the outbreak was over more than a year earlier on August 29, 2013 when they admitted that there had been 417 cholera cases and 3 cholera deaths.

An employee of the public health ministry, "who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to comment to the media," told Reuters on August 22, 2013: "There is cholera in various places and you can imagine we are having a very busy summer ..."Many of us think the government should stop keeping it a secret."

Despite the protests by Raul Castro the response by the Cuban government to this healthcare emergency speaks volumes about the real nature of a system which prioritizes appearances over lives.

Cuban dissident journalist Calixto Martinez broke the cholera story at the cost of nearly seven months in prison which earned him a designation as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

As the cover up continues the body count continues to rise.

Travelers to Cuba should be wary and take precautions for both cholera and dengue not to mention common sense precautions with regards to crime which is unreported by Cuban officials.