How Communist Cuba is on the World’s Frontlines Against Coronavirus

Image by duncan c via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

goingundergroundRT on Mar 30, 2020

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Dr Silvia Bignamini, the health director of San Francesco Hospital in Bergamo, Italy. She discusses some of the difficulties medical services are facing in local communities due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the shortage of PPE (personal protective equipment) in hospitals all over the world, the main forms of transmission of the coronavirus, important steps to suppress infection, problems with the current available testing methods, her experience of becoming infected with Covid-19, and more!

Next, we speak to Professor Guy Standing, former economic adviser to John McDonnell of the Labour Party and author of ‘Battling 8 Giants: Basic Income Now,’ about the coronavirus economic crisis. He discusses his opinion on the government’s plan to pay 80 percent of workers’ wages, and why he believes it won’t work. He also explains why universal basic income is the only way to save millions from homelessness and solve the lack of demand for basic goods, why Universal Credit will ultimately fail in alleviating the economic crisis caused by Covid-19, the current problem of neoliberal capitalism growing bigger due to the crisis, the ‘precariat’ growing due to coronavirus, and more!

Finally, we speak to Dr. Helen Yaffe, author of We Are Cuba! How A Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World. She discusses Cuba’s international medical effort against Coronavirus, from sending doctors to many countries abroad, to its drugs for COVID-19 treatment and vaccine development, the history of Cuba’s ‘Army of White Coats’ and medical internationalism, why the United States and Western powers view Cuba as a threat, Cuba’s Interferon Alpha-2b drug which could aid the fight against Coronavirus, the US blockade of Cuba, allegations of Cuba being a dictatorship and more!

Watch the video here.

From the archives:

Chris Hedges: The Priorities Are To Bail Out Large Corporations + Hedges on Coronavirus, Climate and What Next?

Jack Rasmus: The Bailout For Workers Needs To Be As Big As The Bailout For Banks + Richard Wolff: Fate of the Global Economy

Socialism at Its Finest after Fed’s Bazooka Fails by Ellen Brown

Chris Hedges and Lee Camp, et al: Money Alone Cannot Overcome Coronavirus Crisis

The 2020 Coronavirus Economic Crash and The Crisis of Capitalism by Rainer Shea + Richard Wolff: This Is Like Nothing Ever Experienced

Top 10 Reasons the U.S. Government Is Blowing This, by David Swanson

The Fed’s Baffling Response to the Coronavirus by Ellen Brown + Richard Wolff: The Inherent Instability Of Capitalism Is Its Tendency To Have Economic Crises Every Few Years

Richard Wolff: Banks are Trembling! + Caleb Maupin: Oil Crisis on Wall Street! + Sanders Slams Trump’s Alleged “Natural Ability” To Understand Coronavirus