Cuba: Governing with Science

President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, along with the Head of the Chair of Science, Technology and Society at the Havana University, Jorge Nuñez Jover, proved it right in a paper published in the Cuban Academy of Science journal Anales.

Although several Cuban citizens do not have high degree of expertise on the subject, some had already commented — either in the lines to buy chicken or at home — on the obvious and effective alliance in Cuba between government and science in times of Covid-19.

Not that this bond did not exist in other times — let us recall Cuba´s Literacy Campaign which laid the foundations for a brighter future when Fidel stated: “the future of our nation is necessarily the future of men of science.”

But neither Cuba or the world had experienced this sort of crisis before. Hence, the Greatest of Antilles thought up, before such tough situation, an unprecedented response, hallmarked by the close alliance between the government´s strategies and the scientific work as one of the leading fields in this fight.

And this alliance not only cover the highest sectors of the nation, but it also reaches every province and municipality to the point that we usually see Presidents of Defense Councils leaning on charts created by experts or suggestions made by epidemiologists, among others.

And even common citizens have embraced this strategy. Most of us have watched on TV or heard about the curves in the predictive models developed by mathematicians, geographers, and others. Other people have learned the weird names of most medications “made in Cuba” produced by Cuban biotechnology to strengthen our immune system.

Such tangible alliance has also solidified the trust of the Cuban people in their leaders, in the health system of Cuba, which means certitudes have strengthened.

It is not casual that several people have aired, especially in social networks, their desire to be in Cuba these days instead of being in their own home countries, where markets, earnings, and electoral votes prevail over the respect and protection of life.

Actually, only a socio-economic system like the one we have in Cuba allows that all social layers may converge in a common goal, despite the whirling winds of the US blockade, which has been getting worse in recent times.

That is why this system, which focuses on people, laid the foundations for a united and mostly disciplined population, paramount in the implementation of all strategies.

And we are not only enduring Covid-19 and the US blockade, creativity and wisdom have been also encouraged — from the implementation of protocol actions to the production of ventilators and protective face masks — as well as the accuracy in tests and action plans.

Stats are there to see how different we are from neoliberalism. And beyond numbers, the life experiences of every Cuban — whose life lessons are here to stay — ratify it.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff