When Communist Propaganda Runs Amuck: The Castro regime's tourist trap in Cuba

Communists lie people die

Italian tourist in Cuba: "“[w]e are in a terrible hospital, in awful sanitary conditions"

Channel News Asia reported on March 24th, "[a]s Latin American countries slowly began to close themselves off from the outside world against the threat of the virus over the last few weeks, Cuba continued to try to woo tourists - who brought in US$3.3 billion in 2018 - with wide-open borders and touting itself as a safe destination."

Cubanet reported on March 15th that Marta Cavallo, an Italian tourist diagnosed with coronavirus and admitted to the “Pedro Kourí” Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), over Facebook denounced conditions at the hospital, located west of Havana stating,“[w]e are in a terrible hospital, in awful sanitary conditions, when they give us food, they ask us to drink the soup from the plate, [without a spoon], there is not even toilet paper … they do not give us news of any kind, and it is impossible to talk with any doctor.”

Below is an advertisement posted on March 9, 2020 by Havanatur, a tourism company owned by the Cuban military that claims that because "Cuba is bathed in the rays of the sun all year, and taking pertinent measures they have greater strengths before COVID-19 and that Cuba is a safe destination"  showing a picture of folks on the beach in Cuba, without masks contrasted with two women with masks in an urban setting somewhere else.

On March 20, 2020, The Sun published "WHERE CAN I TRAVEL? Coronavirus travel advice: The full list of holiday destinations Brits can and can’t travel to" by Lisa Minot with a long list of countries either banning or putting strong restrictions on travel, but Cuba was still open for business:

"Cuba - No restrictions on entering the country. Screening on arrival, if presenting symptoms you may be taken to health facilities in Havana."

This at a time when Cuba is suffering from shortages of soap, and toiletries for Cubans in the island, and conditions in hospitals that do not meet minimum hygiene standards. Below is video smuggled out of a hospital in Cuba with patients exhibiting coronavirus symptoms.

Condiciones de los pacientes con sintomatología de coronavirus en un hospital de #CubaSocialista, @DiazCanelB ustedes son el verdadero y único enemigo del pueblo cubano. pic.twitter.com/HOG0unxtLI

— Andry Cuba (@CubaAndry) March 22, 2020

 On March 11, 2020 the  official press reported that four Italian tourists who were staying at a hostel in the southern town of Trinidad after arriving at Havana airport on March 9, 2020 had presented respiratory symptoms and were taken to a hospital on March 10th, and on Wednesday the hospital confirmed three of the tourists had tested positive for the coronavirus.

This was most likely a clever move after Panama's Ministry of Health, a day earlier, on March 10th reported that two Panamanians, ages 55 and 29 who visited Cuba had tested positive for the coronavirus when they returned home.

The Castro regime has invested heavily in international propaganda campaigns, and doctor diplomacy (that often times turns out to be human trafficking) to create a positive, but false, image of Cuba as a medical super power. Worse yet, the Cuban dictatorship has a history of covering up epidemics in order to lure in unsuspecting tourists. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak the most recent documented outrage was a Zika outbreak in 2017.
The 2017 Zika hidden outbreak in Cuba should have given pause to those planning to travel to the island on holiday in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Yale School of Public Health’s Nathan Grubaugh and his colleagues in a 2019 report revealed a total of 5,700 Zika cases in 2017 that went unreported by the Castro regime, and observed 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 had "a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious," and that this was due to their desire to maintain high levels of tourism into the country.

The Castro regime has confirmed 57coronavirus cases, 1,479 people are hospitalized for surveillance and 37,788 are being checked in on by medical students. Based on past history, things are most probably far worse on the island.

This is what the Cuban military that runs tourism in Cuba delivered.