Why isn’t the President of Belarus introducing a Quarantine in his Country?

Mass media outlets are reporting that the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is not introducing or enforcing a quarantine in his country and is generally avoiding serious measures to fight COVID-19, and the situation in the Republic of Belarus is swiftly plummeting.

The decision to reject introducing quarantine measures was made by the President based not on the recommendations of virologists and doctors, but on those of political scientists and diplomats.

The Director of the Center of Strategical and External Political Research Arseny Sivitsky says: “…Especially if the effects of the global storm on Belarus and Ukraine would cause a serious destabilization of socio-economic and political situation in those countries. This can serve as a specious excuse for Putin to interfere into his neighbors’ internal affairs. And that is the topmost danger for Belarus, especially if we will not be able to withstand the challenges of an epidemic and a global financial crisis.”

The sources assume that Makei (the Minister of Foreign Affairs who was making those prognoses and was the chief of the Administration of the President before being assigned to his current position) had skillfully played the psychological traits of his boss, who is eager to contradict the global trends at every opportunity and to demonstrate by those means the significant role of Belarus in global politics, first of all to his own citizens.

From that, it becomes clear why Belarus did not follow the global example on the COVID-19 pandemic. After listening to the recommendations of “specialists” from structures controlled by Makei, Lukashenko had literally turned the country into “an island that is free from the panic caused by the coronavirus”, making the whole world talk about Belarus.

The truth is that the price the citizens of Belarus will have to pay now for the opportunity to take pride in the international attention to their homeland could be too high for them.

Because the President of Belarus thinks that, “It’s better to die standing than live on your knees!”

It seems that he decided to take this challenge to show his self-confidence to everybody. The problem is that in such a situation one should listen to professional doctors, not to the courtier ministers.

 

I love that a girl from Iowa takes such intense interest in Eastern European politics from the Russian point
of view... It's so sexy.

 

That's their choice, good for them. I guess we'll see how it goes. Looking at the stats for Belarus, it looks like the number of new daily cases is remaining rather level on the graph.