Nicaragua introduced preventive measures against Covid-19 starting in early February 2020. The authorities started health controls at the country’s borders and airport, identifying people possibly infected with the virus, encouraging voluntary quarantine with close medical supervision and careful contact tracing. The health ministry trained specialist staff, set aside 19 hospitals across the country to treat patients affected by the virus and activated a massive, nationwide education and monitoring campaign involving over 30,000 community health promoters. The health ministry devised effective prophylactic treatment for people with symptoms of the virus and issued effective guidance for the protection of the elderly and patients with chronic illness.
Once the pseudo-vaccines that prevent neither infection nor transmission became available thanks to donations from India, Russia and other countries, the Nicaraguan authorities initiated a staged voluntary campaign for those who wanted to receive the injections. Following UNESCO guidance, Nicaragua did not close its public schools nor did the government apply restrictions to the country’s economic activity. Wearing masks is still required for now in public offices, on some public transport, at some public events and in many business premises, but has never been obligatory for people generally. The introduction and application of these policies addressing Covid-19 in Nicaragua have been much more humane and democratic than those imposed in North America, Europe and most of Latin America.
In addition to needing to address genuine public health concerns while defending their people’s overall well being, Nicaragua’s authorities also faced corporate driven pressure to conform from the Bill Gates dominated World Health Organization and Western governments and from domestic opposition fear campaigns trying to cause widespread panic among the country’s population, as they did in 2018. Despite those pressures, impoverished Nicaragua has been probably the most successful country in the Americas addressing the public health problems caused by Covid-19 in a genuinely democratic way.
By contrast, like practically all the governments of the supposedly democratic Western countries, Prime Minister Trudeau’s government has applied restrictive measures damaging people’s economic well being. The education authorities applied measures ruining children’s education and seriously damaging their emotional development. The health authorities imposed mandatory pseudo-vaccination, as well as inflicting relatively very high levels of serious adverse reactions in comparison with genuine vaccine treatments for other diseases.
Compared to Nicaragua, Canada and all its fellow wealthy OECD member countries have failed abysmally in terms of both public health and democratic governance. In terms of public health, Canada failed to protect people vulnerable to the virus, generally failed to offer effective, timely treatment to those sick with the virus, and failed to protect either the overall economic well-being of its population or the well-being of the country’s children. In terms of democratic governance, the Canadian authorities have sought to suppress and censor dissent. The pseudo-vaccine mandates have caused extreme distress to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people, especially workers, who reject them with good reason.
Western governments in general have failed to protect the vulnerable, grossly mismanaging care for the elderly in particular. They failed to offer readily available, timely treatment and care to people sick with the virus, trashing and smearing highly respected doctors advocating cheap and effective drugs for early treatment of symptoms. They failed to introduce rational preventive measures protecting their peoples’ overall well being. Now Canada’s authorities are mobilizing security forces so as to repress widespread peaceful protests resulting directly from their public health failures, their anti-democratic economic measures and their assault on the basic rights of children. The classic fascist union of corporate and State power across North America and Europe has never been more clear.
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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal.
Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Featured image: Nicaragua 2018 – police officer Gabriel de Jesús Vado Ruiz, tortured, murdered and set on fire by opposition thugs in Masaya in 2018 (Photo from opposition social media video)