Nicaragua’s top health advisor on confronting Covid: “the way to face this was to keep working”

Max Blumenthal interviews Sonia Castro, lead advisor to the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, on the Sandinista government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Castro explains why, despite heavy criticism, her government did not follow World Health Organization guidance to lock down the population and instead kept schools and businesses open.

She also discusses her government’s guidance to prescribe off-patent early treatments against Covid and its ongoing, Cuban and Russian-assisted national vaccination campaign. This interview was conducted in Managua in February 2022.