Juventud Rebelde 176
A Frenchman Who Saw the Sun Again
The Frenchman Who Saw the Sun Again in the Isolation Center in Matanzas
This white-bearded man conveys with his clear eyes the immense gratitude that neither resources nor tiredness nor sleep were spared in order to save him
By Hugo Garcia digital@juventudrebelde.cu
April 9, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Jack Gaetan Joseph Villiers, Discharged Patient Author: Jessica Rufin Posted: 09/04/2020 | 07:36 pm
Jack Gaetan Joseph Villiers is a Frenchman who is miraculously alive. It’s as simple as that. But the miracle has also come about because of the proven professionalism of Cuban health.
“This is the first time I’ve seen the blue of the sky after almost 20 days of admission,” he said in a choppy voice from the wheelchair in which he was being transferred to the ambulance that would take him to Havana.
This man with a graying beard conveys with his clear eyes the immense gratitude that no resources, no tiredness, no sleep were spared to save him.
“But I feel good already. When all this is over, we will return to Cuba,” he whispered in his deficient Spanish as he said goodbye to the bus at the Mario Muñoz Monroy Hospital’s isolation center, becoming the sixth confirmed positive patient of the COVID-19 to be discharged in this city.
“Now I can confirm what my brother, who is a doctor, said about the capacity of Cuban doctors, who have specialized in fighting pandemics and diseases like these,” the Frenchman stressed to the Matanzas television and radio media.
Dr. Juan Carlos Martin Tirado, director of the hospital, confirms that this is another achievement of Cuban medicine, because this patient had many of the expected complications at his 72 years of age, including heart disease, hypertension and a major underlying diabetes mellitus.
Martín Tirado praised the delivery of the multidisciplinary team of intensive care, which worked day and night to save the patient.
Trump and Covid-19
Trump, an Egomaniacal Monster, and Covid-19
WHO Director-General Tedros has been clear about attitudes like those of Trump and others: “Quarantine policy…”, at the WHO “no policy is made”, its mission is “to care for the poor and vulnerable”
By Juana Carrasco Martín
April 9, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
While Trump tries to discredit the World Health Organization, the world is still struggling Author: Falco Posted: 09/04/2020 | 04:32 pm
He’s definitely not crazy, he’s a shameless, cynical bastard. A criminal of the same ilk as Hitler. A being unworthy of belonging to the human species. Every day he does or says an atrocity or various monstrosities. Of course, I am referring to Donald Trump, the powerful president of the United States, which is why he tells us so much about what he says or does.
This Tuesday, April 7, when the world counted 78,269 deaths and at least 1,381,014 people infected with Covid-19, figures that continue to grow by the minute, Trump announced that he will suspend the U.S. contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO).
An hour before this mention at his daily press conference at the White House – not before he had given a rapid test of the virus to everyone in the vicinity of the president and vice president Mike Pence, especially reporters – Trump had exposed on his personal Twitter account that the World Health Organization (WHO) was too focused on China and had given – in his opinion – wrong advice during the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
The campaign to discredit the World Health Organization coincides with a revelation by the WHO’s director-general, Ethiopian microbiologist Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said that in the past three months, during which his organization has led the global fight against the coronavirus, it has received threats of death and attacks of various kinds, including racist ones.
“I’ve been getting personal attacks for three months, some of them racist, and to be honest I’m proud of my color. I have even received death threats, but I don’t care at all. Why would I care about being attacked if people are dying, we are losing lives every minute,” he said.
“When it’s personal I don’t care, I’m no better than anyone else, but when an entire community is insulted, then that’s it, I can’t tolerate that,” he said in a calm tone.
Tedros has been clear about attitudes like those of Trump and others: “Quarantine politics…”, at the WHO “you don’t make politics”, its mission is “to care for the poor and vulnerable” in these times when the whole world is embroiled in the crisis caused by the coronavirus.
This was the motivation of the American president, when the Director of the WHO rejected the racism of “scientists” who propose to use Africa as a laboratory for criminal experiments on the population. This would have been under the pretext of looking for a Covid-19 vaccine, Trump decided to punish the WHO. Venezuelan diplomat Samuel Moncada, commented on Twitter: “It is colonialism at war with the world”.
But Trump’s actions are not limited to looking to the WHO as a scapegoat for his own mistakes in handling the crisis, which he long ignored, but he had even denied the terrible importance of the disease.
If we are particularly affected and hurt by the application of the laws of the blockade to prevent a Chinese donation to Cuba from reaching the Greater Antilles, it must be pointed out that it acted with equal dishonesty and lack of ethics towards its allies. For example, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pointed out that he is still working to persuade Washington to lift the blockade on a shipment of half a million masks that should have arrived in Ontario on Wednesday.
The lord of the White House does not lose his ways, and when the world needs love, courage, compassion, generosity and commitment to the truth of what is happening, Donald Trump continues to set deadly traps.
Psychological Management of Isolation
Psychological Management of Isolation
Paradoxically, this dramatic moment for the human being is an opportunity to stop the consequent damage of so many other excesses that put the existence of the planet and life at risk
By Mariela Rodríguez Méndez
April 6, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Isolation is an effort for the world economy and subjective, applied with the intention of gaining health and life. Every contagion that is avoided is a way to stop the progression of this epidemic that is costing humanity so much.
Paradoxically, this dramatic moment for the human being is an opportunity to stop the consequent damage of so many other excesses that put at risk the existence of the planet and life or its enjoyment.
Pause in the urgency, the haste, the daily race to fulfill, to win, to be successful, to consume, to be in fashion, etc. A pause from those days with the feeling that time was not enough, that what matters most or is enjoyed was postponed. We are invited to a pause for reflection, reorientation, the encounter with the compass that indicates those little things that make us feel and help us to live. This is also a break longed for by many, even if it is difficult to recognize.
It is a pause that will make us look, listen and speak to those who accompany us in the home. It will be an opportunity to rediscover what unites us with them. Perhaps it is also a time to ask ourselves how we would like to live the next isolation, even if that is chosen in the best conditions of a planet pulsating with life and vigor. Isolation to love, work and create.
Baby Born in Isolation Center
Baby Born in Isolation Center
The baby was named Mario Ramses and is in good health with his mother
By Hugo García
April 7, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The unexpected birth are samples of the capacity, experience and cohesion of the medical team that works in this isolation center in the city of Matanzas Author: Hugo García Published: 07/04/2020 | 12:27 am
Matanzas: Two extraordinary and emergency events took place during the last days of confrontation with COVID-19 at the Mario Muñoz Monroy Hospital’s isolation center.
First, a Russian tourist who had suffered a hip fracture at the hotel where she was staying was successfully operated on. Then, Dayana Almeida Gómez was assisted in giving birth at the same institution, where she remained suspected of carrying the new coronavirus and there was no time to transfer her to the city’s maternity hospital when she went into labor.
A medical team made up of Doctors Ramses Isaac Marrero, Lourdes Gonzalez Cabrera and Noel Rodriguez Ortiz, assisted by staff from that hospital, brought the 22-year-old to full term. She was admitted on April 2 and was transferred to the provincial maternity hospital on Sunday, April 5.
“I named him Mario Ramses, in honor of the doctor from Moncada, whose name the hospital bears, and Dr. Ramses,” says Dayana, a resident of the Ciénaga de Zapata municipality, who entered as a suspicious case and finally she and her baby were diagnosed as negative.
Photos: Hugo Garcia
Both the surgical intervention for the foreign tourist and the unexpected birth are samples of the capacity, experience and cohesion of the medical team that works in this isolation center in the city of Matanzas, from which four patients in good health have already been discharged.
The new mother behaved very well and it was a quick delivery, says Ramses: “We had all the conditions in this hospital, even though normally deliveries are never carried out here. Everything went well and the baby weighed 3,250 grams.
Doctors Lourdes González Cabrera, Ramsés Isaac Marrero and Noel Rodríguez Ortiz
Related photos:
Loving in Times of Epidemics
Loving in Times of Epidemics
Can you live a full sexual relationship without kissing and with fear of leaving the place with more than you came in? Many people will feel unsatisfied under those conditions.
By Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
March 31, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Telling spicy stories is also a way to overcome isolation. Illustration from The Decameron, a painting by John William Waterhouse Author: Juventud Rebelde Published: 03/31/2020 | 10:54 pm
“Love becomes greater and nobler in calamity”
— Gabriel García Márquez
“It is a human thing to have compassion for the afflicted, and although it is convenient for everyone to feel it, it is more appropriate for those who have already had need of comfort and have found it in others. Among these, if there was someone who needed it or was loved by it, or already received from it, I count myself.
This is how the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio begins the first book of tales of the Renaissance court era, The Decameron, in which, through the double sense, comedy and youthful audacity, he recreates the duality of a Europe devastated by the plague in 1348, one of the 40 serious epidemics that humanity has recorded in its historical annals since the Roman Empire.
Seven girls and three boys are the supposed narrators of these one hundred stories, in which desacralized eroticism is the true protagonist of a daring break, not only with the mold, but also with the purpose of medieval literature.
This would be one of the essential books to revisit (or discover) in order to liven up the wait in the virulent context we live in today, and the other, obviously, is that of the immense Gabriel García Márquez: Love in the Time of Cholera.
Both have in common, besides the dangerous epidemiological scenario in which they are developed, an explicit message of hope and good judgment. Firstly, because they appeal to common sense to survive, with joy and love as antidotes to the lack of freedom unleashed by some selfish behaviors of our species. Secondly, because they show that creative isolation is the sanest of all options, if you want to get rid of an invisible and mortal enemy, but one that needs carriers to reach you.
From afar
Returning to the present, let us address one of the questions raised by the rapid spread of IDOC-19 and the quarantines imposed in most affected countries: Could the agent responsible for this emergency, SARS-CoV-2, be transmitted through sexual intercourse, like other viruses known to date?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has made it clear that the only route of transmission is through droplets from the nose or mouth of a carrier, expelled by coughing, exhaling or speaking.
This can be through direct contact or by transferring droplets onto your hands from various surfaces, such as clothing or other commonly used objects. Five seconds is enough to pick up most of the virus and bring it to your mouth, nose or the mucous membranes of your eyes in a mechanical or nervous gesture.
For now, the genital route of transmission and the presence of the virus in the semen or vaginal secretions of people who have become ill have been ruled out. Does that mean that sex in time of COVID-19 is safe?
Yes and no. First you should answer: Can you guarantee that the person you are trying to have sex with was not in contact with a confirmed patient (whether symptomatic or not), or with someone who was close to a carrier, for example, in a queue or on public transport?
Would you enjoy an intimacy where hugging and kissing are prohibited? You may try to play from afar or try positions where faces are distant… And when passion takes hold, what will you do to keep your sanity, health, and potentially your life in a very short time?
The proximity implicit in intercourse facilitates the inhalation of particles expelled by your sexual partner, whether you want to or not. Therefore, those who have casual relationships with strangers are at greater risk (including being required to violate the recommendation not to go out unnecessarily), and the greater the number of such exchanges, the less likely they are to ensure that those people (and those who were in their beds before you) are not infected, even without feverish symptoms or respiratory disorders.
It should be noted that the risk is the same for those who have carnal sex, talk face-to-face or kiss, and the latter is the quickest way to get the virus.
If it is your stable partner, the one you love and want to be healthy, you have two options: either wait to be in isolation long enough to know that both are out, or take it as any other time in the relationship when you needed to distance yourself and kept love alive by other, more innocuous and equally useful ways to feed the passion. The third would be to add the nasobuco in a role play, perhaps personifying thieves and maidens…
One last question: Can you live a full sexual relationship without kissing and with fear of leaving the place with more than you came in? Many people will feel unsatisfied under these conditions and will prefer to postpone the encounter, among other things so as not to develop sexual dysfunction due to anxiety or distracting fear. Others will take up the challenge and appeal to their imagination (or technology) to take care that the malicious virus does not take over in the sacred space of their sexual life. You decide which side to be on…
The Science of Applause
The Science of Applause
As we clap to lift the morale of thousands of health workers, we search out the specialists
By Iris Oropesa Mecías digital@juventudrebelde.cu
April 2, 2020
Translated by Merri Ansara for CubaNews.
Edited by Walter Lippmann
The Physics of Palms Author: Taken from the Internet Published: 02/04/2020 | 06:53 pm
One of the issues that we have valued much more since the beginning of the current pandemic is the work of every worker who has been kept in place. From artists who play for us in their homes, to street sweepers who stay in the streets, bakers and cooks, caretakers of the elderly, traffic inspectors, teachers who give digital classes on their own initiative… and yes, them, the everyday doctors, whom we applaud at agreed hours, a gesture that seems to us still small in the face of their daily greatness and which in countries like Spain has become almost religious in its fulfilment.
These are also days when we have to learn to deal with matters in an intelligent way. That is why this time Detrás de la ciencia goes in search of that mystery of hundreds of people clapping their hands on their balconies as we Cubans do every night. Is the applause an exclusively human gesture? How did it come about? What are the secrets of its contagion? What does science know about this social phenomenon?
Ovations with history
Most human beings just beat the palms of their two hands rhythmically. In some sectors there are variations. There are universities where tables are beaten when a lecture is over, or the well-known clapboards of tobacco farmers, for example. But, in general, applause is an expression of admiration for a well-done performance. And we find it so natural that we might come to believe it is part of our DNA.
Joaquim J. Vèa, a Catalan primatologist, has explained the human exclusivity of applause, quoted by the magazine Quo: “After many years studying primates in the forests, I have never seen a (non-human) primate applaud”.
This phenomenon is discovered totally socially. We are not born as a species knowing what applause is in its current concept. We need to learn it in society. History, then, is a science that has much to say about it.
The emergence of the custom dates back to ancient civilizations. The ancient Greeks expressed their approval of plays by cheering and clapping their hands. The Romans preferred to snap their fingers, but they also clapped and waved the tips of their robes, or used special strips just to generate a sound of admiration.
It is often said that Emperor Nero paid nearly 5,000 people to applaud his public appearances. They would practice two types of applause: imbrex, with hollowed-out hands, and testa, with flat hands.
Over the centuries, several sounds alternated in the taste to express approval of a show: whistle and even spit became among the favorites, widely used in the seventeenth century.
The churches, both during the Middle Ages and much later, in the Protestant era, played an important role alongside the theater, in the social development of applause. But even when the Catholic clergy forbade these manifestations at masses, coughing, humming or blowing through the nose became the way a brilliant sermon or a well-toned chorus was approved.
But this journey does not yet answer: why do we do it, what human needs do we satisfy in this very contagious cultural fact?
Think and feel your applause
Psychologists say that any form of applause satisfies the human need to express an opinion, a euphoric emotion, and the need to communicate with a protagonist with whom we cannot engage in a conversation in person. Social psychology specialists also explain that applause gives the audience the feeling that they are participating. Since the audience cannot pat the actors on the back, they applaud.
Another mystery studied by psychologists, which was published in a study in the journal Nature, by the way, was the highly contagious nature of applause.
The specialists who analyzed thousands of recordings of massive applause in different parts of the world concluded that the great contagion of applause is not due to the imperiousness that is recognized in itself, but to the social nature of the act of applauding.
Another study, from Uppsala University in Sweden and published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, sets out mathematical models for measuring applause in a social group, and shows that if a person starts clapping 2.1 seconds after a lecture or presentation ends, 0.8 seconds later the whole group starts clapping, whether they like it or not.
“We used the selection of the Bayesian model to test several hypotheses about the spread of simple social behavior, applause after an academic presentation. The probability that people will start clapping increased in proportion to the number of other audience members already ‘infected’ by this social contagion, regardless of their spatial proximity,” explained the lead author.
The Greek Plutarch (46-127 BC) says that due to paid plaudits, for example, Philemon of Syracuse (361-263 BC) managed to surpass the famous Menander (342-291 BC) several times in theatrical performances, not necessarily because he surpassed him in the dramatic.
The Physics of Palms
But science, this time physics, has discovered more than mysterious features of this social action. The authors of an article on applause published several years ago in Nature pointed out that they alternate in periods in which the ovation is an incoherent sum of palms along with other periods in which the audience applauds in a rhythmic and synchronized way, and they verified that in the synchronized applause the frequency of the palms of each spectator is half that of the incoherent applause.
The dynamics of the group applause was summarized: at the beginning of the ovation most of the applauses are enthusiastic and synchronization is not possible; but after about ten seconds the spectators reduce to half their applause frequency and a synchronization period begins. If you are a ballet lover, you will not let these scientists lie.
The journalist Juan Manuel Rodríguez Parrondo explained it this way: “Imagine that at the end of a play you have especially liked and you applaud as you would in the theatre; count the number of palms you give during ten seconds and obtain the frequency of the applause; repeat the experiment, but imagining that you are in the situation of synchronized applause. You will see that the frequency in the second case is about half that of the first.
This mystery of frequency doubling and synchronization of applause is a widespread phenomenon in nature and there is no particular reason for it, but it has been proved that nature likes periodic oscillations.
Heart rhythms, menstrual rhythm, the swing of a swing… Thus, a person tends to always applaud with two frequencies, one double the other, depending on his or her enthusiasm. But in short, it seems to be true that we have an unconscious attraction when we synchronize our applause with the rest of the audience.
Which of these scientific explanations do we put into practice when people from various regions of the world go out to their balconies to give their doctors a standing ovation? Probably, the psychological explanation of wanting to be part of something, of communicating with actors that we cannot pat on the back, this time, the best actors and actresses: all the health personnel who every day put themselves in the line of battle against the virus that is plaguing us. To compensate us, the Spanish clinical psychologist Juan Castilla assures us: “It is an invaluable gesture. We are not aware of the positive impact this generates”.
Cubaphobia tries to politicize the pandemic
Is He a Dummy, or is He a Booby Trap?
Cubaphobia: the attempts to politicize the pandemic and -irrationally- to put Cuba as the focus and center of the contagion, has already appeared on the political scene in Miami
By Juana Carrasco Martin
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Esteban “Steve” Bovo, doesn’t look like a fool with his latest invention Author: Juventud Rebelde Published: 19/03/2020 | 10:50 pm
The new coronavirus has upset some people. The symptoms are a brutalization caused by bad intentions and Cubaphobia, translated into attempts to politicize the pandemic and -irrationally- to put Cuba as the focus and center of the contagion.
Of course, such bullshit could only come from Miami – a city contaminated for more than six decades by a visceral hatred and a vengeful desire for Cubans to disappear from the map, in order to appropriate this beautiful archipelago at any cost.
The most recent invention arrived with Twitter feeds and a letter sent to President Donald Trump by Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo, asking him to place Cuba on the list of restricted travel to the United States, because “we need to take all preventive measures to protect Miami-Dade County and the state of Florida from the spread of COVID-19.
In Bovo County, the number of confirmed cases rose to 76 (March 18 data) and is increasing, as is the number of positive cases in all of Florida, which is almost 400, ranking among the highest in the 50 U.S. states.
Everyone knows, as do many Americans, including medical experts, and Democratic presidential hopefuls, say, that Trump did not act on SARS-CoV-2 in time, and that the public health care system — and, of course, the private health care system, plus the insurance companies — are responsive to the profits they can make, not the needs of their citizens.
Therefore, the records show that the United States is the country with the highest rate in the entire hemisphere, with 13,737 cases positive for COVID-19; 201 deaths and 108 recoveries. There are now 178 countries where the pandemic has made landfall.
However, the commissioner assures that Cuba has falsified its records, that it is rumored that the sick are Italians, that there have been no medicines in the country for a long time, and he dares to point out that “Cuba cannot protect its people, much less the tourists”.
Such is the blindness and bad temper of the aforementioned that he does not see how the world recognizes the benefits of the Cuban anti-viral recombinant Interferon alpha 2B, nor the gratitude of the passengers and crew of a cruise ship condemned to sail aimlessly through the Caribbean. [It wasn’t] until the humanism, solidarity and generosity of the largest of the Antilles and its people, opened a port and airport for them to return to the United Kingdom. A “I love you Cuba” was the best message from HM Braemar…
It would be good, in case they need it, to take into account that the Cuban pharmaceutical industry is prepared to treat thousands of possible patients with COVID-19, and our antiviral has already been successfully used in China.
The problem is that the Bovo is riding on the xenophobic bandwagon of the White House president, who never acknowledges his failures and looks for scapegoats in others, in order to also run an election campaign, since he hopes to be the mayor of Miami.
Nor does he care that if this extreme measure of cutting off travel between Havana and Miami were taken, it would totally sever the ties of Cuban families, a crime against humanity.
The Law and the Virus
The Virus and the Law
By Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
March 24, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
“Yeah, I know what they’re gonna tell me, if I’m on the street for fun they’re gonna give me a ticket. So what? So I have another reason to get out of the house: to pay them. I’m not going to be locked up! If what you get, you get one day…
The (not so few) people traveling on the A95 this Monday would think that my (involuntary) chat partner would be joking, but I chose to think that her bravado, bordering on indolence, was her way of dealing with something that makes her nervous and she doesn’t dare to admit it.
“Let’s see, why aren’t you locked up,” she tried to challenge me by staring at her. “I’m going to work,” I explained, and she took advantage of the situation to justify herself: “And I’m going to fight! They brought out detergent in the Vedado and I already have a point that buys at a premium everything I get. For me, that’s ham, because I form my own in a line and I see the load.
I sighed long and deep. Explaining to the lady the legal and moral implications of her conduct would be like plowing in the sea. But people were paying attention to her gestures and I decided to take advantage of the improvised mobile platform for a preventive civic talk, including the teenager who was clearly accompanying her on the “walk”.
“It’s not just fines: You can be imprisoned for three months to a year… to begin with,” I let out in an intriguing voice, assuming that her “bogeyman” would be to lose his freedom. She raised an eyebrow, and still with a cheek, asked, “Why is that?”
“Because that is the penalty for those who commit crimes against public health, such as spreading epidemics or refusing to collaborate with the health authorities in campaigns to prevent them,” I said, summarizing Article 187 of the Cuban Penal Code. Then, without pause, I reinforced the blow: “If you also boast, as you do now, it can be assumed that you are acting maliciously and the penalty is five to eight years. Ah! and as an author, not an accomplice, so there is no reduction”.
She took a breath, as if to reply in a not very good way, and I took advantage of her gesture to add: “They also give three months to a year to anyone who incites others not to take action against an epidemic, so go on adding up… And if “doing your thing” is to create panic to tangle up the tail, that crime costs you one year to three more. And, of course, contempt for the authorities–and those who report actions at the Mesa Redonda are contempt for the authorities–is also a crime, and failure to take care of your dependents is also a crime under the law.
In front of us, a young man followed my monologue of legalese, splashed by the speaker with that sound that in Cuba we call “frying eggs”. His face showed disbelief, but he did not dare to support or deny the alleged anarchist.
Another gentleman, standing near the door, commented that, even putting it all together, the penalty was little for the gravity of the moment, So that gave me grounds to say that if injuries or deaths are proved to have been caused by an irresponsible attitude, the penalty is multiplied in years, not counting the punishment for hoarding products in an illicit economic activity.
“You want to put more fear into it than the coronavirus,” he cut off my explanation, no longer smiling. “And with me, that doesn’t walk. Besides, putting people in jail doesn’t solve the problem,” he insisted on defending himself, but the young man finally took a stand for common sense: “What not? If you stop exposing others with that, it will surely work, and in the long run, people will understand that this is serious, so let’s get back, pure, get back!
Our Duty is to Protect People
Our Duty is to Protect the People
Personal will and medical responsibility drives Alexander Labrada Torres every day to fiercely guard the border of Isla de la Juventud in the face of the COVID-19
By Roberto Díaz Martorell
March 23, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Dr. Alexander Labrada Torres is one of the many Cuban doctors protecting the borders to prevent the entry of the new coronavirus. Author: Roberto Díaz Martorell Published: 23/03/2020 | 08:55 pm
Nueva Gerona, Isla de la Juventud – The alarm clock sounds at 5:00 a.m. and Dr. Alexander Labrada Torres turns it off instinctively. His tired body resists getting out of bed, but the responsibility as a doctor gives him the final push and, as he did several weeks ago, he gets ready to do her duty.
At his side, his wife, Yuraika Gonzalez, diligently prepares breakfast and helps with the backpack. Nothing can be left behind: gloves, nasobuco (mask), cap, the water to drink, the glass…, and the kiss goodbye after the strong coffee to recharge the batteries. Alex goes out on his bike and travels the distance between his house and the Passenger Boarding Terminal in Isla de la Juventud, where he is the head of the border service dealing with COVID-19.
“Responsibility is inherent in every doctor and you comply with corresponding rigor, especially when it is your turn to look after the health of more than 500 people every dayl There are are two trips more than a thousand, in addition to the crew. In addition, each person conducts himself in a different way and sometimes it is very difficult to dialogue,” he says while organizing the work at the terminal.
First, he prepares with all the established attachments for cases like these, then he distributes the resources to the workers who, are obliged to interact with the people and watch over the fulfillment of the foreseen measures. It stops. He observes that everything is going well and he almost smiles.
“It is my responsibility to monitor every boat that leaves or arrives on the Isle of Youth; I do it together with the nurse on the catamaran to check the temperatures and the active search for any respiratory symptoms. The first trip begins with the check of bulletins from 5.30 a.m., and when we set sail, contact with the director of the entity along with the board of directors to assess the implementation of health and hygiene measures in all its units.
“And if it were only one trip, it would end with the reception of the boat around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., but on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays there are two,. On the second one, the control begins around 2:00 p.m. That second trip arrives in Nueva Gerona after midnight and sometimes until 4:00 a.m., and already at 5:30 a.m. a new day begins.
“I am very grateful to my wife; without her support, it would be very difficult to complete these schedules, I almost always arrive at the house to eat and sleep. I almost always arrive at the house to eat and sleep. While keeping myself informed of the hygienic and epidemiological situation of the country and the municipality,” he says, taking a seat to “refresh” the tiredness caused by the intensity of the work and sleeping after hours.
But Alex is not satisfied yet; he still thinks that a large part of the population does not understand the magnitude of the situation and maintains inadequate behavior. “The fact that, in Isla de la Juventud, there are still no confirmed cases of COVID-19 does not eliminate the conditions of vulnerability for contagion and that is avoidable if the measures of the Ministry of Public Health are fully complied with,” he explains.
“I get tired and I get better; fulfilling my medical responsibility is the daily vitamin I consume. We can’t afford not to identify a COVID suspect, because I know that with my work I’m protecting an entire island that expects the best from me,” he says.
At the Viajero maritime terminal in Nueva Gerona, no confirmed positive cases are reported, but they are on high alert. Any respiratory or feverish symptoms are monitored in those who leave or enter the territory by this route. “Here we have a post or isolation room, health hearings are held for passengers during their stay. Also, when they board the boat they disinfect their hands with sodium hypochlorite,” he explained.
During the trip to the port of Batabanó, the catamaran carries a nursing staff with the necessary medical supplies to act in case of an emergency and also during the three hours of travel is observed the conduct of passengers, if necessary to activate the protocol provided.
Alex tells us that the most critical day happened with the first Italian who arrived in the territory with catarrhal symptoms and he was on duty at the General Teaching Hospital Héroes del Baire. “Everything was very fast, with no time for training, and we didn’t have much knowledge of the disease. It was a long night without sleeping and I was worried, because I didn’t know what would happen in the morning. Luckily it was negative; the patient only had to be treated for pneumonia.
“I have been counting the days for two weeks in a row, but I have the confidence and assurance that my personal actions are helping to keep this little island free of the coronavirus. And I know that, like me, there are thousands in the country who keep a permanent watch on our borders; a hug for them and we continue to fight. Our duty is to protect people and we will do it,” he emphasized.
Render Unto the Body
Render Unto the Body
The Things Which are the Body’s
Modern society governs sexual activity in such ways that as humans, we have become too inhibited about the topic to handle our erotic responses “naturally”.
By Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
July 27, 2012
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Is sex dirty? Only when it’s done the right way.
— Woody Allen
Seeking sexual satisfaction is one of our basic drives as humans, and masturbation is our first natural sexual activity; it’s the way we discover our eroticism, learn to respond sexually, gain self-confidence and build self-esteem, according to therapist Betty Dodson, author of the book Sex for One that we e-mailed to you some months ago.
In her opinion, modern society governs sexual activity in such ways that as humans we have become too inhibited about the topic to handle our erotic responses “naturally”.
Sexual skill has to be learned from practice, she says. The first step to enjoying orgasm is learning to like our own genitals, particularly in the case of women, who have been compelled for centuries to see themselves as sexless mothers and domestic-slaves.
There’s not a “right” or “better” way to have sex, especially if we repress our desires or fantasies for the sake of vaginal sex as the only proper kind of sex and reproduction as love’s ultimate purpose.
We can get pleasure out of touching our own body without feeling guilt, even in front of our partner, Dodson recommends. Couples seldom feel the urge at the same time, but sometimes all either one of them has to do is start with self-caressing for the other to become aroused and follow suit. And if not, well, the one who started will at least satisfy his or her sexual urge, which is fun, since neither of them has to restrain themselves or feel obliged to do something against their will.
Cultivating pleasure leads to more of it. Masturbating together provides a wider range of possibilities to experience new things and first-hand knowledge about what our partner prefers and, at what rate, by paying attention to their reaction as we caress their erogenous zones.
Our psychological intimacy grows as well when we are free to speak our mind and feel less compelled to meet the other’s needs all the time.
Many of Dr. Dodson’s patients admitted being very tense when they didn’t feel like having sex. Thinking a simple “No, thanks” was out of the question, they would start an argument instead, as the best way to stay clear of their partner’s advances, which would eventually do more harm than good to their relationship.
Such a negative attitude toward things erotic has been culturally induced. Behind most stories people tell their therapists or discuss in the media is a great deal of needless suffering caused by ignorance.
This lack of knowledge about their genitals and how to stimulate them has led women to think they’re less a person than their partner and in many cases to fake their orgasms, which gives them a sense of being trapped in a big sexual lie.
Once they get to bringing down the cultural barriers and agreeing from the beginning of the relationship that all orgasms are equally valid, they will suffer less and spare their significant other the trouble of striving to make them feel satisfied with penetration.
If a woman can masturbate to orgasm, she is orgasmic, Dr. Dodson points out. Men call frigid a woman who fails to reach orgasm in the traditional position, in a matter of minutes, and the way he likes. But very few women will climax like that, mainly if their center of pleasure par excellence –the clitoral area– is not caressed. Can males by any chance have orgasms without stimulating their glans?
A massage with no strings attached
Having orgasms is not a requisite to enjoying love, but those who never have them will hardly ever take a positive stance towards sex. If you feel obliged to pretend you’re having a good time just to keep your partner happy or avoid his/her demands for more intercourse the hopeless way, your relationship is sure to pay for it and you will start living in a constant state of anxiety.
Sexual repression and distress take a toll on both sexes. Sometimes men also force themselves to penetrate their partner even if they’re not in the mood only because “they’re supposed to” or for fear of being dumped. However, specialists worldwide agree that when we’re too tired or tense to have sex it’s better to forget about it and get a good massage instead.
No one expects to have orgasms from or get turned on by a massage, so it’s safe to ask your partner for one. You only have to let yourself be carried away with the feeling and loosen up to enjoy such a sensual, relaxing rub that gives a good lift without demanding a sexual response in return.
Dr. Dodson assures us that modern men and women are always on edge because they “pretend” all the time and play multiple roles in their jobs, families, communities… Not everybody looks for a chance to leave the “stage”, stop thinking and find a little time to feel without any obligation to fulfill other people’s needs.
Therefore, whenever she works with couples who have been together for a long time, she advises massage and masturbation, stressing that when we stop doing the same old things in the same old positions, a new erotic experience is likely to open up new horizons to our intimacy, and without any pressure.
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