MINSK, 27 November (BelTA) – The entire world has seen that back during the first wave of the pandemic Belarus chose the right way of fighting the coronavirus infection. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the statement as he visited Minsk City Clinical Hospital No.6 on 27 November, BelTA has learned.
Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that the high coronavirus infection rate is a very serious problem for the country and for him as the head of state although Belarus already encountered the problem during the first wave and acquired certain experience.
The president even drew parallels between the Belarusian army of medics and the Soviet Union army during World War Two: the latter lacked experience and cohesion at the beginning of the war in 1941 but things changed radically by 1945. “The army we have now is not the army we had in 1941. It is 1945 now, the war is ending, we have a powerful army, you – commanding officers and soldiers of this army – are totally different people. It is the main conclusion of the fight against COVID-19 in Belarus.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko reminded that when the new coronavirus emerged, he warned it was very important to prevent panic as part of the efforts to counter the infection. “Psychology is the most important thing for treating these patients. It is something I told you thanks to my intuition back when this disease started taking hold here. Panic, psychology, and as I said, corona psychosis – everyone knows the term by now,” he noted. “You know my point of view, it has not changed since then. It has grown stronger, my convictions have grown stronger. Some of you, let's be frank here, held little faith in what I said back then but have at last understood that I was right about some things.”
The head of state once again underlined that the coronavirus had stopped being a purely medical problem a long time before. “It is not only your problem [a problem for medics], it is a political, economic disease. If some country wants to separate itself from someone, it closes the border under the pretense of COVID-19. If some country wants to put political pressure on someone, it resorts to COVID-19,” Aleksandr Lukashenko pointed out.
“It is important that the entire world has seen that back then we followed the right road,” he stated. “We travelled this road decently – the world's only nation that did it.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko also stated he is aware of the problems the medical community discusses, including in its professional Telegram channels. Some people are allegedly concerned about the truthfulness of COVID-19 death rate statistics in Belarus. “Don't worry. Nobody deceives anyone here. Nobody needs to do that. Some say that statistic figures are falsified. But why would we? What does it mean? From the point of view of politics it may have been better in order to put our infamous protesters in their place (but they can see it already): more than half of those with a positive test result are in Minsk,” he noted.
“It is only natural. Because they roam the streets, particularly on Sundays while failing to observe social distancing,” he added.
“Let's not follow those wannabe writers, who are trying to make waves in the Internet now. It is impossible to hide the death rate. Yes, asthma, pneumonia, and so on can be the diagnosis but the overall death figures will not go anywhere. Once the year is over, the entire statistics will be available, and medics will know the exact death toll. Nevertheless, why do they try to hype it up online?” Aleksandr Lukashenko wondered. “Because it is a burning issue, needs more hype. Nobody is going to hide anything. We live in a world where it is impossible to hide it, even leading countries cannot do it.”
