29 March 2024, Friday, 5:15
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It Will End Badly For Him

It Will End Badly For Him

Earlier, it concerned the things which seemed abstract to many.

Fair elections, freedom of word, persecution of activists. Now it concerns life and health of every person. And they started telling us about “wash your hands”, economic sense, and the step which would mean economic losses. It doesn’t come just like that. Moreover, it seems they are doing everything cattily. The people I know say that they would gladly switch their students to distant education, and hoped they could do so, and be low-key about it. Here’s a big no-no to everyone: on the contrary, they demand everyone must work in a normal regime, and even check it. Big bosses, hah. And they even go and check.

The arguments of the two sanitary-epidemic ladies, at the very least, do not impress. They keep telling about the total control over the situation, because they are monitoring the 1st and 2nd level contacts of the infected that are known. Meanwhile, I know for sure that they don’t check everyone even on the border. And the internet is full of people’s stories on how they wanted to be tested for the coronavirus, but were denied such opportunity even on a paid basis. Let alone doing it for free. Like, the state has not enough money for everyone. It has money, though, for ice palaces, ice hockey tournaments, special hospitals, and Vienna balls. But not for tests. As for monitoring the cases that are already known - this is just window dressing. It turns out they don’t work with the uncontrolled spread of the infection at all.

The talks that children and young people do not get sick with the coronavirus cause nothing but revolt. Children may be carriers of the virus. They closely communicate with each other. Are the authorities going to question every kid who he played with? Will they follow all the contact chains?

You know, Lukashenka’s approach to this epidemic prevention painfully reminds the reaction to the opposition protests: whenever possible, to pretend that there are no reasons to be outraged, monitor individual hotbeds, and declare in the end that the police remain his stronghold. In theory, the only logical continuation of such policy is to hush down the cases of illness, and conceal real diagnoses. This is, actually, what is happening in all spheres of our life, starting from hazing in the army, ending with the prohibition of independent sociological studies.

The cynicism is overwhelming. It seems the authorities are counting on the scenario, most favorable for them: the virus spreads as broadly as possible, they diagnose people with flu and ordinary pneumonia, the peak of the disease passes, and the authorities make a proud pose, like, we prevented panic with our wise actions, and, in general, Belarus has its own, special way. Maybe they will even succeed in this. But the cost will be our lives and health. This “strategy” reminds the WW2, when they piled the corpses of the Soviet soldiers over Hitler, and celebrate this in a proud pose of a winner, for 75 years. Of course, the difference is in scale, but the approach is the same.

The only fine moment I can note so far is the answer to our first question to Rumas (how many artificial respirating units are there in the country). The sanitary-epidemic ladies started their press-conference with the answer to this question. 1,500. This is at least something.

And now just listen to the appeal of Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Ukrainians. For comparison.

And yes. A shy hope has started blooming that most people will realize that this decision-making system needs to be changed (and this is what is called politics, by the way). And that people will stop saying the word “panic”, because they will see in our outrage the demand for reforms.

Volha Mayorava, press-center of the European Belarus civil campaign

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