God of Shutdown is Punishing Belarus

by philg

“DESPITE ONE OF WORST CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAKS IN EUROPE, BELARUS REFUSES TO CANCEL MILITARY PARADE” (Newsweek, May 6):

Belarus will continue to hold its annual military parade this week, despite experiencing one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Europe.

According to a tracker provided by Johns Hopkins University, as of Tuesday, Belarus had 7,000 confirmed cases of the virus and at least 103 deaths.

103 deaths? In a country of 9.5 million, that’s “one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Europe”? Wouldn’t Belgium, with 8,000 deaths out of a population of 11.5 million, be a better candidate for “worst”? Or Switzerland, with nearly 1,500 deaths and a population of 8.6 million?

What could account for the journalist and editors at Newsweek describing Belarus as a Covid-19 disaster area?

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic that has impacted countries across the world, Belarus has remained one of the only European nations to not impose a lockdown, to fight the spread of the virus.

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5 thoughts on “God of Shutdown is Punishing Belarus”

  1. Newsweek has always been fake news. Nothing to see here please move on and go back to regularly scheduled programming!

  2. I know you get a lot of enjoyment out of describing social distancing as a form of religious belief, but you do know that this is a textbook example of the genetic fallacy, right? You can’t argue that social distancing is ineffective because it’s motivated by religious belief.

    • Umm, I think the fundamental point is that the major organs of public propaganda are making incredible claims. That seems to me a serious obstacle to making rational public policy in a democracy.

  3. Well, I am not a shaman or one of those “I am always right” people, thus I suggest an almost 100% sure solution:
    What if, now that the crisis is already here, we just try to be modest, humble; wait and see for after the crisis is over, and then lets measure for sure which countries had the best solution(s).

    So that “next time” (likely to happen), we know. For sure.

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