General Maximo Gomez, a key figure in Cuba’s 19th-century wars of independence against Spain, once said: “Cubans either don’t meet the mark — or go way past it.”
A century and a half later, the aphorism rings true. This downtrodden island that struggles to keep the lights on has now vaccinated more of its citizens against COVID-19 than any of the world’s major nations.
More than 90 percent of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose of Cuba’s homegrown vaccines, while 83 percent have been fully inoculated. Of countries with populations of more than 1 million, only the United Arab Emirates has a stronger vaccination record.
Illustration: Mountain People
“Cuba is a victim of magical realism,” said John Kirk, professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University, Canada. “The idea that Cuba, with only 11 million people and limited income, could be a biotech power, might be incomprehensible for someone working at Pfizer, but for Cuba it is possible.”
Like most Latin American countries, Cuba knew it would struggle to buy vaccines on the international market. So in March 2020, with foreign exchange reserves plummeting due to the loss of tourism revenue and ferocious new US sanctions, the nation’s scientists went to work.
The gamble paid off. This spring, Cuba became the smallest country in the world to successfully develop and produce its own COVID-19 vaccines. Since then, its well-staffed universal healthcare service has rolled out injections at a fast clip, inoculating even young children. Additionally, all vaccination on the island is voluntary.
Both Cuban vaccines are more than 90 percent effective, according to Cuban-run clinical trials conducted last spring. Successful rollout has brought infection rates down from among the highest in the western hemisphere last summer to low levels today.
In August last year, the island reported hundreds of COVID-19 deaths per week; last week there were three.
The vaccine success is all the more striking when set against the parlous state of the healthcare service in other areas. With hard currency inflows cut in half over the past two years, antibiotics are now so scarce that 20 pills of amoxicillin trade on the black market for the equivalent of a month’s minimum state salary. Out of plaster cast, doctors in some provinces now resort to wrapping broken bones in used cardboard.
“Ever since the 1959 revolution, Cubans have embarked on these grand crusades which are quixotic yet often successful,” Havana-based lawyer Gregory Biniowsky said.
A prime example was Fidel Castro’s pipe dream of investing US$1 billion in biotech after the Soviet Union disintegrated, Biniowsky said.
“Any rational adviser would have said this was not the time to invest resources in something that might bear fruit in 25 years, and yet here we are now ... where these fruits of the biotech investment are saving lives,” he said.
Other quests have dramatically failed, such as the Ten Million Ton Sugar Harvest of 1970 that aimed to produce an unprecedented amount of sugar to spur growth. However, to cut the cane, workers were pulled from their regular jobs, paralyzing industry and wreaking havoc on the economy.
Cuba last year harvested seven times less sugar than in 1959.
“As a nation, there’s a tendency to get really good with the big things, and awful at the everyday things,” said Hal Klepak, professor emeritus of history and strategy at the Royal Military College of Canada.
“The whole idea of electrifying the country [in under a decade], abolishing illiteracy in two-and-a-half years, and medical internationalism — these were all just mad schemes, and they did it,” Klepak said.
Today, Cuba posts tens of thousands of doctors and nurses to humanitarian work abroad, but fails to grow enough potatoes for the population.
Cuba’s highly centralized state planning system — one of the last in the world — goes some way to explaining this paradox. When there is political will from the top, objectives can be driven forward; when there is a lack of direction, the nation’s rigid, Kafkaesque bureaucracy can elevate passing the buck to an art form.
“In capitalism, you tend to have, even with very little things, somebody to fill the market,” Klepak said. “The difference with Cuba is that for [most economic] decisionmaking, there isn’t anyone but the state.”
After registering fewer than 100 cases per day for weeks, infection rates are now rising due to the highly contagious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Cuban scientists have not released data on the efficacy of their vaccines against Omicron, but have begun work to update their vaccine against the variant.
In the meantime, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health has fast-tracked its booster campaign, and aims to give almost the entire population an extra shot of vaccine this month.
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