Communist Party USA is spreading disinformation spread by the Castro Regime about COVID-19

Communists lie and people die.

Communist Party USA on October 7th was repeating and sharing disinformation spread by the Castro regime about COVID-19 over social media. Journalists in Cuba who attempt to counter the regime narrative with facts are being gagged. Early on in the pandemic in Pinar del Rio on April 13, 2020 video of a body with regime agents expressing concern that the corpse was contaminated with the coronavirus was uploaded to Facebook and was reported on in El Nuevo Herald. Since then the regime has cracked down on citizen journalists, and those uploading images and video that portray the Castro regime in a poor light. 

The statement repeated by CPUSA is false on multiple fronts. First, Castro regime numbers are false but even their number of current active cases, according to Havana, are 482 not 38. The number 38 is for number of new cases claimed by Havana on October 6, 2020. 

Second, there were 105 daily cases in Washington, DC on October 6th compared to 28 cases on the previous day. Overall active cases in DC are 2,671. Metro area population of Washington DC in 2020 is 5,322,000. These numbers are more reliable than what Havana is providing the international community. 

In February 2020 the Castro regime announced that there was a shortage of soap and detergent in Cuba that would not be alleviated until April 2020 or later, due to decisions made by the central planning authorities. This meant that Cubans did not have access to soap to wash their hands for months at the start of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of travelers from Europe, China, and other areas heavily impacted by the coronavirus had been entering Cuba throughout the early months of the outbreak. For an idea of the magnitude consider that at least 147,900 Italian tourists and 49,781 Chinese tourists traveled to Cuba in 2018 and Cuba's military run tourism industry sought to double the number of Chinese tourists.

SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19

Castro regime officials falsely claimed throughout February and March 2020 that Cuba was a safe harbour with effective treatments for (SARS-CoV-2) virus for visiting tourists.

Officials refused to close schools, or take other precautions, Cubans desperately began to take steps on their own against the pandemic, having learned about it on the internet. Teachers, ignoring the regime's orders, closed schools and sent children home. The Catholic church, aware of the danger presented by public gatherings, suspended religious services. 

Cuba’s independent journalists raised the alarm while the official media insisted that the country was prepared for the epidemic, that tourists were welcomed while the pandemic ran its course elsewhere. Officials said that Cuba’s sun was “a good antidote” and continued to advertise their false claims on social media targeting European and North American audiences.

The claim that Cuba did not have coronavirus in larger numbers under these circumstances was highly unlikely, but then North Korea continued to claim that they has no cases of coronavirus through July 2020, despite having a border with Communist China, where the virus outbreak occurred in Wuhan, and South Korea having 24,422 cases. 

Consider, recent history in Cuba on reporting outbreaks, and the consequences for healthcare professionals and journalists.

Dengue 1997

Dengue virus

In 1997 the Cuban government 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."

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.

Cholera 2012

Cholera

Fifteen years later, 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.

Zika 2017

Zika virus

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 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.

In 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." 

Relying on Castro regime data on coronavirus cases in the current pandemic is a dangerous proposition both for one’s credibility and for the lives of Cubans and those visiting the island.

Conclusions and recommendations

When travel opens up again will these kind of screening measures be in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 from international travelers especially from governments such as China, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba that can not be trusted to give accurate information on outbreaks? 

We are in a new world with the current pandemic and recent history has shown that it is better to be prepared than caught by surprise because other countries and international health agencies have not done their due diligence endangering millions.

Policymakers should look to what Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia have done to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and keep a wide berth from what the Castro regime is doing.  

If  you are interested in the truth then read Katherine Hirschfeld's Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898, to obtain a fresh perspective from an honest academic on the realities of healthcare in Communist Cuba.  

Steer away from communist propaganda. Remember when communists lie, people die. Thanks to the lies of communist China over 1,060,562 people have died of this disease around the world.