On the COVID-19 front, I’m delighted to share some great personal news!

Out of the blue the other day, I got a call from Pacific Spirit Community Health Centre, which is part of Vancouver Coastal Health. Would I like a nurse to come to my home the next day to give me the vaccine?

Of course! I accepted the offer on the spot. My partner, Penny, was offered one, too, given her age and the fact that she shares a home with someone in the high-risk category for complications from COVID.

A very professional and pleasant nurse came by the next morning. In minutes she had vaccinated us both and was out the door.

As glad as I was to see our B.C. medical system working so well, I was even more excited to see the remarkable news on the COVID vaccine front coming out of Cuba, especially as countries around the world are vying for vaccines.

Cuba is a small nation with an even smaller economy. According to the World Bank, Cuba’s per capita GDP is in the range of US$9,000. By comparison, Canada’s per capita GDP is around US$46,000.

For 60 years Cuba has endured an extremely punishing American economic blockade. In spite of all of this, as soon as the pandemic became apparent, Cuban scientists got to work and set about achieving what many richer nations did not—developing their own effective vaccine. And not just one or two vaccines—they’ve developed four of them!

For decades, Cuba has had a highly developed medical and health-care system, including very advanced pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.

In recent years, Cuban scientists even developed a lung cancer treatment—CIMAvax, which is also a vaccine. People from around the world have travelled to Cuba to access it, plus it’s currently being used in the United States to treat otherwise terminal lung cancer patients.

Back in 2002, Republican consultant and Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton (a.k.a. Mr. Moustache), made all kinds of outrageous claims when he was the State Department’s arms control chief under the Bush administration. Despite no evidence supporting his claim, he kept calling for action against Cuba, including stopping any of its biotech exports, insisting the only reason that sector in Cuba would be so advanced would be for nefarious purposes, like germ warfare or developing toxins.

Thank goodness that former president Jimmy Carter came to Cuba’s rescue and brought some sanity to the table. During his and Rosalynn’s visit to Cuba the same year, he made a speech at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana praising Cubans’ dedication, research and humanitarian efforts to share knowledge about better health care with the rest of the world.

President Carter also noted Cuba’s excellent vaccination programs for children, and addressed Mr. Moustache’s charges of bioterrorism, which “coincidentally” arose right before the Carters’ unprecedented visit. Before he left the U.S., Carter had requested, and received, thorough briefings from the State Department and other American intelligence agencies. Not one shred of evidence supporting Mr. Moustache’s outrageous claims was found.

But back to the good news about Cuban COVID vaccines. According to a CNN report, Cuba’s Soberana vaccine candidate has received authorization to begin phase three trials immediately. Soon, a second vaccine, named Abdala, will also start phase three trials.

Note that none of the Cuban vaccines are named for a corporation. Two of them are named Soberana—Spanish for “sovereignty.” The Abdala one is named for a popular poem written by the great Cuban revolutionary, José Martí. The fourth vaccine, Mambisa, which will be applied nasally, refers to Cuban independence soldiers who fought two bloody wars for freedom against the Spanish in the 1800s.

If approved for wide-scale use, Soberana and Abdala will become the first two vaccines developed in Latin America. (You can read more about Cuba’s vaccine trials here.)

All of this points out that if Cuba—in spite of the blockade and its tiny economy—can develop its own vaccines, then surely Canada could have easily done the same, had Brian Mulroney’s and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives not hollowed out Canada’s biopharmaceutical sector decades ago. What a crime that was!

I’m impressed with how quickly and easily Penny and I got our COVID vaccines. But imagine how quickly all Canadians might have gotten vaccinated if only our biotech sector still had the capability to develop them.

Imagine, too, how we might have shared those vaccines with the rest of the world. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The technology and expertise needed to develop such a vaccine can be applied in so many other ways, much as Cuba has demonstrated with its lung cancer vaccine and more.

Cuba is proof positive that remarkable things can happen when we allocate financial resources where they are truly needed as opposed to economic growth for growth’s sake.

Daily atmospheric CO₂ [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]

Latest daily total (Mar. 7, 2020): 418.17 ppm

One year ago (Mar. 7, 2019): 414.30 ppm