USA Blocks Aid Deliveries Despite The Coronavirus Pandemic

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Scoop N.Z.

Monday, 6 April 2020, 5:34 pm

United States has prevented a Chinese aid shipment of medical supplies to Cuba to combat the novel coronavirus. The North American transport company withdrew from the contract “at the last minute”, reports the Cuban ambassador in Beijing, Carlos Miguel Pereira. This is despite the fact that the number of people infected in Cuba has risen to 233, and six people have died as a result of Covid-19 disease.

On 22nd March the Chinese entrepreneur and founder of the “Alibaba” trading platform announced an aid shipment of two million respiratory masks, 400,000 reagents for PCR diagnosis and 104,000 respirators for Latin America and the Caribbean. Cuba should have benefited from this delivery. However, due to the existing blockade laws of the United States, the US company that was commissioned with the transport dropped out at the last minute. Cuba’s ambassador to China called the action “illegal, unjust and arbitrary”. For Cuba, “things will become more and more complicated,” Pereira said.

After the island enabled the British-Norwegian cruise ship “MS Braemar” to evacuate people infected with coronavirus in March, the island made the headlines again this week with a humanitarian aid operation: a Condor aircraft coming from Nicaragua was allowed to land in the eastern Cuban city of Holguín after the Boeing, which was primarily loaded with returning tourists from Germany, had previously been turned away by other countries in the region. The aircraft was finally able to refuel at the “Frank País” airport in the eastern Cuban city of Holguín before crossing the Atlantic.

Cuba has also been affected by the global pandemic since the 11th March. Last Tuesday, the country was closed to tourism. Since then, only Cuban citizens have been allowed to enter the country, and after entering are required to be quarantined for two weeks. Schools and universities have been closed, and people are urged to stay at home and only leave their homes for urgent errands, wearing face masks. Meanwhile, 233 infected people have been reported and 2,320 people are in quarantine.

Read more: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2004/S00039/usa-blocks-aid-deliveries-despite-the-coronavirus-pandemic.htm

[duforsure]

1. No surprise

He's doing it to Governors of blue states here in the USA already. He's intentionally using this crisis as a weapon , and he'll do that forcing people to go back to work knowing its unsafe for workers but could care less about their health, they're expendable to him. He''ll order people back to work over Governors objections, and if they refuse he'll pull the old cutting any federal funding to them to do it, or else.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. They really don't care who they murder nor why.

[dhill926]

3. can China just send this on it's own...

without the use of the North American company? I admittedly know nothing about this stuff. Oh...and fuck trump and every republican enabler...they all have blood on their hands...

[Igel]

4. Might have just been faster.

Not really much information.

[RobinA]

5. Now This

is wrong. I wrote a post elsewhere about the no masks to Newfoundland situation in which I questioned whether we necessarily have an obligation to send out goods that we have a serious shortage of. However, there is no excuse for this if it is as reported. Citing trade laws in an emergency situation is just petty and mean. And unconscionable.

[Firestorm49]

6. All because this administration was too inept to get a handle on it when they were first told.

What a sad excuse for a president. What a despicable party. What a mess we’re in.