In Communist-run Cuba, the private sector helps the needy as coronavirus spreads

[Judi Lynn]

APRIL 3, 2020 / 4:32 PM / 5 DAYS AGO

Sarah Marsh, Rodrigo Gutierrez
4 MIN READ

HAVANA (Reuters) - Upmarket restaurants are delivering free meals to the elderly, while a fashion firm donates face masks. A business consultancy calls on its clients to donate hygiene products and artisanal soap shops gift their wares to low income households.

In Communist-run Cuba, the fledging private sector is rushing to set up solidarity initiatives for those most vulnerable to the coronavirus outbreak, demonstrating the state no longer has a monopoly on helping the neediest.

Sometimes the two are even joining forces to combat the common invisible enemy.

Saverio Grisell, the Italian co-owner of restaurant Bella Ciao, which usually teems with expats, tourists and affluent Cubans, says he discussed how he could help with the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).

“The president of my CDR gave me a list of 29 elderly people and I decided to give them a meal for free every day,” he said.

More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cuba-private-secto/in-communist-run-cuba-the-private-sector-helps-the-needy-as-coronavirus-spreads-idUSKBN21L382

[Bayard]

1. ..."a list of 29 elderly people and I decided to give them a meal for free every day,"

This should be happening in the U.S. right now.

[Judi Lynn]

2. True! So much would have to change first, however, in a society with people who shoot & kill

people sitting in a car with loud music, or standing at the door asking for directions, etc.

In Cuba, there is actual community, shown at times like hurricanes when they all follow drills and help each other and even their animals all get to higher, safer ground, away from flood waters, etc. They have a world-wide reputation for being one of the fewest per capita losses of human lives in hurricanes.

Also they have the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, and teachers per student. Very few US Americans seem to grasp how little they have to work with during this longest lasting embargo in the world, the US cowardly economic war which bleeds them continually year by year and keeps them suffering amid amazing scarcity.

That attitude right here in the US would transform life entirely, but it has to come from within, it appears.