Jon Lee Anderson

So the lights were often off throughout the city.

Back in the 1990s, when the Soviet Union imploded, it was bad as well.

But now the electrical grid really has just fallen apart.

And with it, virtually all public transport that existed before.

And no economic activity.

I mean, people simply aren't doing anything.

So it was striking to see Cuba really on the ropes like that.

You know, Cuba, whatever else its critics said about it over the years, they conceded that it had this extraordinary medical health care service, which was true.

Fidel Castro put a huge amount of effort and...

into creating really a world-class healthcare system that it in turn exported.

Human doctors are all over the world.

And whatever else was going on in Cuba, you could rely on medical specialists or the hospitals to treat illnesses.

And they even had made breakthroughs in certain areas.

in certain areas like retinitis pigmentosus or orthopedic and pediatric care and so on.

But now many of the doctors, many of the people with any kind of medical or any qualifications really have left because they just couldn't survive on the government-provided salaries of the equivalent of a few dollars a month.

And so doctors that might be cardiac specialists are now pushing geriatrics around Dade County

literally pushing them in their wheelchairs, you know, that kind of thing, or driving Ubers.

And in order to make some money to send back to their families, that's just what's happened.

And so I have a number of friends who are older, they are

in their 70s and 80s, I'm thinking of two friends who are widows and very good friends of mine who, both of whom I found had chikungunya.