When President Trump ­announced a restriction on travel from Europe in a mid-March Oval Office ­address, European Union officials erupted in outrage.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, issued a joint statement with the president of the European Council thundering, “The coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action.”

Just a few days later, von der Leyen advanced her own proposal to ban nonessential travel into the European Union.

We are all restrictionists now. In the novel coronavirus crisis, everyone realizes the importance of borders, even the people who not long ago were ideologically hostile toward them.

Borders mark off the sovereign territory of one people from another. They are a means — if they can be enforced and defended — for a sovereign state to protect its people from invaders and unwelcome immigrants and goods. They are a tool almost every nation has used to try to keep the coronavirus from gaining a foothold in its population — and try to keep it from spreading further.

The lyrics of the treacly John Lennon classic “Imagine” — recently performed by celebrities organized by actress Gal Gadot as a balm in this time of distress — have never been so absurdly inapt.

If there were really no countries and the world were as one, we would be even more vulnerable to whatever threat arises in a city in central China — or anywhere else on the globe.

Of course, travel restrictions haven’t prevented the spread of the disease — there’s no such thing as an air-tight seal. But restrictions at least bought governments some additional time, and openness to foreign travel from China has been an accelerant to the spread.

The EU’s travel restriction was an attempt to hold off the hardening of borders between EU nations themselves. Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland tightened their borders without coordinating with other EU countries. Even Angela Merkel’s Germany — which provided the kindling for populist movements across the Continent with its open-borders approach to the 2015 migrant crisis — ­restricted travel without coordinating with its neighbors.

Such restrictions are the least of it. Italy has had trouble importing masks because European countries have been working to hold on to supplies, indeed, to hold on to food. According to The Wall Street Journal, “German officials said their restrictions were partly designed to safeguard supplies at German supermarkets from French shoppers.”

So much for a new era of European solidarity dissolving historic, centuries-old political and cultural divisions.

In a crisis, no one says, “Please, ship overseas medical gear we might need here at home — we are citizens of the world too broad-minded to care about the interests of our own people over the interests of anyone else.”

And no government has acted this way, whether right, left or center; whether led by cosmopolitans or nationalists; whether in Asia, Europe or North America. Every state realizes its foremost obligation is to its own people.

Of course, Trump is naturally ­inclined to this view. He imposed travel restrictions even before the seriousness of this crisis seized him. The pandemic gives new credibility to his dim view of our commercial entanglement with China, and ­before this is all over, there will probably be bipartisan legislation to minimize our dependence on Chinese-manufactured pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.

None of this means that we shouldn’t wish other counties well, help them if we can and share ­research and technologies. But borders exist for a reason. All peoples have their own governments that, if they are doing their jobs, put the health, safety and welfare of their own people first.

The coronavirus has acted as a solvent on a decade or more of clichés about the arrival of a globalized world where old lines drawn on a map no longer matter. In a crisis, everyone turns to borders as a first line of defense.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/03/suddenly-even-globalists-are-big-on-borders/

So far, according to the Robert-Koch institute, 2,300 cases of COVID-19 infections have been recorded among doctors and caregivers in Germany, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports. 

The real number could be much higher, however. Consequences for sick people could be devastating.

Many private practices have already shut down because doctors and their personnel have contracted the virus and have fallen ill.

As German hospitals are experiencing a shortage of essential protective gear, they are pleading for help.
Hospitals in Berlin have appealed to the public to make masks, especially to tailors. The hospitals have gone so far as to put out instructional videos showing how to make the masks. 

The 2,300 healthcare workers infected with the Sars-CoV-2 virus only include the people working in hospitals. Private practices, laboratory workers, retirement and nursing home outpatient caregivers are excluded.

While hospitals are begging for help, tailors are being intimidated with possible fines and criminal persecution if they mislabel masks.

Trinkwalder, the owner of a sewing company in Augsburg laid down some harsh criticismfor the authorities and lawyers.

“We are currently producing 10.000 mouth and nose coverings. Here I have to be careful already not to mention the ‘protective’. If we made full use of our capacity it could be 50.000 – 60.000.”

The problem is specifically about deliveries. Her company is only permitted to release the masks on behalf of official authorities or systematically to important facilities.

It makes no difference whether she gives away the masks or, as she currently says, sells them at cost price.
”We have to reject every small request from private nursing services or children’s hospices.”

When asked about the guilty parties, she went on to say:  “Lawyers, who apparently have too much free time in their home office.”

Trinkwalder fears fines because her masks are not certified as medical products. If they are brought into circulation anyway, she could become liable.

voiceofeurope.com/2020/04/germany-fails-its-heroes-2300-hospital-workers-infected-with-corona/

Hundreds of Muslims came to the traditional Friday prayer and followed the call of their Imam. The police tried to break up the illegal gathering. Because of the Corona pandemic, there is also a ban on assembly and contact in Germany.

Police and the public order office first tried to organize the meeting in the Berlin district of Neukölln on April 3 in such a way that the prescribed safety distances were observed. When this did not succeed, the event was dissolved in agreement with the Imam.

RBB-Online investigated that the mosque was the Dar-as-Salam mosque observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. As is known from numerous surveys in European countries, orthodox Muslims consider the law and constitution of their new homes to be subordinate to the laws of Islam. The mosque community is one of the largest in Berlin. Before the Corona crisis, around 1,500 people gathered there for prayer every Friday.

This was reported by the police via the short message service “Twitter”. It was still unclear on Saturday morning whether there would be penalties for the Muslims, hundreds of whom ignored the government’s ban on contacting other people. On “Twitter”, many users were annoyed about a suspected unequal treatment. “Were there penalties?! Why not? Or are there penalties only for being German and sitting on a bench?” – Another user suspected that the police should not intervene against the Muslims, as this “was not desired by the left-wing government”.

wochenblick.at/massengebet-bei-moschee-300-moslems-pfeifen-auf-corona-kontaktverbot/

By Andrea Widburg

Although the mainstream media is perfectly ready to target Christians for violating the new social distancing and lockdown rules, they are remarkably quiet about Islam. This is remarkable when one considers European Islam’s nonchalant, even arrogant, response to COVID-19.

Raymond Ibrahim has already written here about the Islamic belief that Muslims are cleaner than infidels and, therefore, immune to disease:

Such is the contention Muslims around the world are triumphantly making.  Thus, the recent article, “Coronavirus – an Islamic Perspective,” opens up as follows:

Allāh has blessed us with a religion that is complete and perfect for all times and places.  Allāh tells us in the Qur’ān:

“This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favour upon you and have approved for you Islam as your religion”

We also have in the Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam), the best of examples, as Allāh says in the Qur’ān:

“Surely there was a good example for you in the Messenger of Allāh”

Whatever problem or issue a Muslim is facing [the article goes on to talk about coronavirus], he returns back to Allāh and his Messenger for guidance; there is nothing that happens in the life of a Muslim except that his religion has a solution to it.

The idea is that those who follow Allah’s commandments (as captured in the Koran) and the prophet’s example (as captured in the hadith) have a much better chance of evading, say, diseases, than infidels do. 

(There may be one benefit Muslim women have that owes nothing to their “cleanliness.” Those women who are heavily veiled may be wearing the equivalent of a mask, giving them some limited protection. However, unless their burqas have built-in N95 30 micron mesh, ultimately, they’re as much at risk as anyone else.)

In France, the police aren’t even trying to enforce lockdown rules in heavily immigrant (read: Muslim) neighborhoods:

A top government official in France has admitted that draconian lockdown measures being imposed on the rest of the population shouldn’t be implemented in the country’s migrant-heavy ghettos in order to prevent riots.

In a letter leaked to magazine Le Canard Enchaine, French Secretary of State to the Ministry of the Interior Laurent Nunez advises, “It is not a priority to enforce closings in certain neighborhoods and to stop gatherings.”

As the tweet above illustrates, the Muslim-noncompliance problem isn’t limited to France. In Germany, too, Muslims refuse to abide by police instructions to avoid large assemblies:

A video out of Berlin shows Muslim worshippers flagrantly violating Germany’s quarantine law and social distancing rules by congregating outside a mosque as police fail in attempting to disperse them.

The clip shows dozens of Muslims crowded outside the Dar-as-Salam mosque in Berlin’s immigrant-heavy Neukölln district as the Islamic call to prayer is broadcast on a loudspeaker.

Germany has a new lockdown law, but the assembled Muslims do not care, nor do they care when a police officer attempts to get them to comply with the law:

All the lockdowns in the world will not work if people in the most densely populated communities refuse to abide by the law. It will be interesting, in a very unpleasant way, if COVID-19 starts to run rampant through these “migrant” communities.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/in_covid19_time_how_do_you_solve_a_problem_like_sharia.html

Reports out of Berlin tell of a German Arctic cruise ship being fired on by a Venezuelan naval vessel, which then rammed the passenger liner, sinking itself in the process.

No, this is not a story that appeared in The Onion.

The Jerusalem Post says that the incident occurred on March 30 and took place in international waters.

The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS  RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy” and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board and was sailing under a Portuguese flag, has a reinforced hull that enables it to sail through ice water.

An unarmed passenger ship accused of “terrorism and piracy”? Well, it is the Venezuelan navy.

Columbia Cruise Services continued, stating that “Shortly after mid-night, the cruise vessel was approached by an armed Venezuelan navy vessel, which via radio questioning the intentions of the RCGS RESOLUTE’s presence and gave the order to follow to Puerto Moreno on Isla De Margarita. As the RCGS  RESOLUTE was sailing in international waters at that time, the Master wanted to reconfirm this particular request resulting into a serious deviation from the scheduled vessel’s route with the company DPA.”

According to the statement, “While the Master was in contact with the head office, gun shots were fired and, shortly thereafter, the navy vessel approached the starboard side at speed with an angle of 135° and purposely collided with the RCGS RESOLUTE. The navy vessel continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to turn the ship’s head towards Venezuelan territorial waters.”

Should I be laughing? Is it really that funny? Just the image in my head of some hapless Venezuelan captain giving the order to ram a cruise ship again and again makes me giggle.

Isn’t that something of a metaphor for the whole, rotten regime?

The cruise company said the RCGS  RESOLUTE sustained minor damages, not affecting vessel’s seaworthiness, it occurs that the navy vessel suffered severe damages while making contact with the ice-strengthened bulbous bow of the ice-class expedition cruise vessel RCGS  RESOLUTE and started to take water.”There were no deaths among the Venezuelan marines aboard the war ship. The Venezuelan authorities returned the navy personnel to safety.On a more serious note, what is the Venezuelan navy doing attacking any ship, much less an unarmed passenger ship? Perhaps they were practicing for when they take on the U.S. Navy.But then, if they fired on the U.S. Navy, it’s pretty damn likely we’d fire back.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/venezuelan-warship-shoots-at-german-cruise-ship-rams-it-and-sinks-itself/

French hospitals recorded their highest death toll in 24 hours from coronavirus on Friday, with 588 new fatalities, France24 reported.

France’s Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, announced the figures during a daily press conference, saying a total of 5,091 people had died in French hospitals since the start of the crisis.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/494295