The New York Times, which in the middle of a diseased city, decided to run this hateful little screed, “The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals — Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies.”
Please, tell me. Which Trumpist evangelical ally runs New York City? What about San Francisco, Washington State?
We already know the “science denialism” that led to outbreaks in ultra-blue urban areas. It had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with politically correct opposition to travel bans or avoiding people from hot zones.
On January 26, New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, warned, “It’s inevitable that we will have someone who is positive with coronavirus.” She also said, “We are encouraging New Yorkers to go about their everyday lives and suggest practicing everyday precautions that we do through the flu season.” She added that those “who had recently traveled from Wuhan were not being urged to self-quarantine or avoid large public gatherings
Health Commissioner Barbot tweeted, “As we gear up to celebrate the Lunar New Year in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of coronavirus.”
Health Commissioner Barbot declared on Twitter, “Today our city is celebrating the Lunar New Year parade in Chinatown, a beautiful cultural tradition with a rich history in our city. I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about coronavirus.”
Councilman Mark D. Levine stated on Twitter, “In powerful show of defiance of coronavirus scare, huge crowds gathering in NYC’s Chinatown for ceremony ahead of annual Lunar New Year parade. Chants of ‘Be Strong Wuhan!’ If you are staying away, you are missing out.
Mayor de Blasio conducted a taped interview with NBC News that ran during MSNBC’s Morning Joe. He said, “We have an extraordinary public health apparatus here in New York City . . . and what became clear to me was it was really about telling the people of our city, this is something we can handle, but you got to follow some basic rules. . . . This should not stop you from going about your life. It should not stop you from going to Chinatown and going out to eat. I am going to do that today myself.”
Later that day, New York City Council speaker Corey Johnson said, “It is important to support the Chinese community in New York City. Unfortunately many businesses and restaurants in Chinatown, Flushing, and Sunset Park are suffering because some customers are afraid of the coronavirus. But those fears are not based on facts and science. The risk of infection to New Yorkers is low. There is no need to avoid public spaces. I urge everyone to dine and shop as usual.”
New York City now has the worst coronavirus outbreak in the country.
It wasn’t the science denialism of “evangelicals” that did this, but the science denialism of lefties who feared anything that might seem discriminatory.
The Left paved the way to this hell and it’s frantically smearing and lying to get out.
Due to the spread of coronavirus, many European Union countries have decided to close their borders, but some may keep them closed long after the coronavirus crisis is over.
The European Union as a whole is also temporarily isolated from the outside world. While in the West of Europe, it is in many ways an entirely new phenomenon, Czechs and Slovaks had to contend with the isolation Soviet occupation brought starting in 1968.
As a result, Czechs and Slovaks are well aware that the concept of temporality is all relative and that major events can open and close the borders in an instant. The same sentiment is shared by many other Eastern European countries as well.
The first signs are now beginning to crop up that the EU countries will not be in any hurry to reopen their borders.
A few days ago, Roman Prymula, the head of the Czech Central Crisis Staff and the deputy minister of health, said that traveling abroad could be banned for Czechs for up to two years.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis then added that opening borders is not a priority.
To the west of the Czech border, many politicians are already calling for permanent border closure.
Perhaps, Prymula and Babiš just made off-the-cuff statements but maybe they were also statements that truly reflect the thought and strategy of the Czech government.
Restricting movement in the Schengen area is nothing new. Some EU states have introduced controls at their borders in recent years due to the migration crisis. Based on the Schengen Border Code, countries can perform controls at the border crossings for up to two years, however, many countries have continued with this measure long after the 2015 migrant crisis came to an end.
France, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Austria, all have emergency measures against illegal migration that are still in place. In addition, Norway, which belongs to the Schengen area although it is not a member of the EU, also features such measures.
The European Commission and the European Parliament have repeatedly criticized these countries for keeping the measures long after they were supposedly permitted to do so and have labeled their actions illegal.
Now, the issue of border closures have come to the fore once again as countries aim to stop the spread of coronavirus by isolating themselves.
For the most part in the past, European internal borders have been completely permeable, and people often did not even notice the crossing points between nations.
Currently, long queues of trucks form at the borders across Europe — a radical change that happened virtually overnight.
Based on the experience from the times of the migration crisis, there is no reason to believe that EU countries will behave differently after the coronavirus pandemic subsides and immediately remove all the barriers at their borders.
Conversely, the longer this measure remain in place, the more difficult it will be to cancel them. The question then becomes whether countries will even want to cancel them.
However, freedom of movement is not only about free travel within the EU. It also concerns the transport of goods and services, which is pivotal to the European economic miracle. Without it, the prosperity of the EU could suffer a worse blow than the virus might have caused.
This is one of the reasons why the European Commission fights to maintain at least the so-called green lanes at the borders, which will allow all freight traffic carrying any type of goods to cross the border within 15 minutes. In many ways, the European Commission is also fighting for its vision of open borders and the future of the Schengen area, with the coronavirus measures representing an existential threat to its existence.
Therefore, the Czech Republic, which significantly benefits from the open single market, and other member countries, should be aware that keeping the Schengen economic miracle alive is in their best interest.
Fires blazed at the Greek-Turkish border last night after it appears Turkish forces relocated thousands of migrants away from the Evros border crossing, which has been the site of pitched battles for nearly a month as migrants tried to pass into Europe.
Greek authorities believe Ankara was behind the relocation effort in a sign the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may be changing course.
Reports on social media indicated that Turkish forces set migrant tents on fire to force them to leave the area.
Other reports, such as one from Ekathimerini, said that on Thursday night, migrants who had been camping out on the Turkish side of the border when they were ordered to leave. They allegedly collected their tents and other belongings and then set them all on fire inside the forest of Kastanies.
Greek forces also allegedly saw many migrants getting in buses, possibly to return to Istanbul.
Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos and the head of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff (GEETHA) Konstantinos Floros are to visit the Evros region later today.
Video from the area shows migrant camps abandoned this morning.
GEETHA sources said Greece maintains its high alert and continues to monitor the situation as the local forest is dense, and Turkey could, in fact, could be deploying diversion tactics.
If Turkey truly did evacuate the migrants from the border, it would mark a remarkable turn around from its previous strategy.
This month, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu openly admitted that mass migration will change Europe’s governments, bring down Europe’s economies, and help collapse the stock market, in remarks he made on the Tarafsız Bölge show on CNN Türk,
According to Soylu, the number of migrants crossing the Greek border to Europe will reach one million at some point.
“Europe cannot endure this, cannot handle this,” said the interior minister, adding that “the governments in Europe will change, their economies will deteriorate, their stock markets will collapse.”
However, Soylu stated that Europe is not aware of this. “Let them do whatever they want to do,” he concluded.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have fled coronavirus in Canada to set up a permanent home in California, taking a private jet to Los Angeles, a source confirmed to Page Six.
The couple, with their 10-month-old baby, Archie, took a secret flight to the LA area, leaving their recent bolthole on Vancouver Island after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the country’s borders were closing last week.
Harry and Meghan are setting up home near Hollywood — after looking at homes in the Beverly Hills area — the UK Sun newspaper first reported.
“This move was planned for some time. They realized Canada would not work out for various reasons and they want to be based in the Los Angeles area.
Oh. My. So much to unpack here.
First, that’s quite the Hollywood vapid celeb thing to do, say you’ll leave, (or stay out) of the country Because Trump, and then not live up to your grandiose vow, just reaping some P.R. points from it. Last Jan. 12, a mere two months ago, Page Six reported this from Meghan:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may be coming to America — but not until President Trump is out of office, a report said Sunday.
Guess Trump wasn’t so bad after all. This puts Meghan Markle right up there with Cher and other Hollywood chi-chi crowd denizens for screaming Trump and not following through on their promises.
Second, the heck they are fleeing any coronavirus crisis in Canada, you don’t flee one crisis and actually jet right in to a much bigger one.
Confirmed cases in Los Angeles County rose by more than 50% in a single day, reaching 1,200. Nine new deaths were reported in the county, bringing the virus’s toll to 21.
Of the people in Los Angeles County who tested positive, 253 — or roughly 1 in 5 — were hospitalized at some point, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
The number of known cases in California also saw a major increase over the last few days, surging to 4,052 on Thursday as testing continued to ramp up. The statewide death toll reached 83 on Thursday.
Los Angeles County also saw a rise in confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. The county reported an additional 422 confirmed cases Thursday, for a total of 1,230 cases. Cases doubled this week in Orange County, pushing the overall count to 256.
Sound like the right place to move if you’re fleeing Canada’s coronavirus? Here’s another one: In the PageSix item:
A source close to Meghan and Harry told The Post: “Right now Meghan and Harry are just concerned for the health and safety of others. These are scary times and they are more worried about what is happening in the world than what’s next for them.”
Doesn’t sound like that’s the case at all, given where they’ve chosen to move. What’s more, their Vancouver digs were isolated, all for the “peace and quiet” they also falsely said they craved, which is a protection of sorts from exposure to coronavirus. So might be Malibu, which they said they didn’t want to move to because it was “too remote.” Hollywood, by contrast — and it’s probably the Hollywood Hills they’re moving to, has 3,063 people per square mile, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hollywood Hills West is 3,048. If it’s nearby West Hollywood, it’s 18,924 people per square mile. Meanwhile, Vancouver Island, which they just left to flee the coronavirus with a baby? A whopping 62 people per square mile. They’re obviously spinning this, thinking no one will check.
Here’s some more Hollywood hypocrisy: Why are they choosing now to fly at all? Nobody’s flying. They are said to be flying on a private jet, but what kind of example is that, not just on coronavirus, but global warming. Seems rules on travel, to keep the spread of the disease down, don’t matter to them. I even wonder how the heck Harry got let into the states as a foreigner, given the travel ban on denizens from the U.K. And heck, while he hasn’t been there since March 9, coronavirus, which has in incubation period, has hit his own family. It sounds like he could be a superspreader. Seems there’s some kind of exception-playing to the rules here that the rest of us are expected to live by, given their ease of coming in.
Here’s some other problems, which don’t really concern us, but show the extent to which these people are willing to lie. The British royal family, which treated Harry and Meghan with utmost indulgence while they were there, yielded to their wishes to move to Canada. Canada, after all, is part of the British Commonwealth, so it was a bit less of a sting to them given the family relationship, it helped them get an amiable settlement and left the family with hopes they might be back someday. Now, just weeks after that was agreed to, the pair are just ignoring that promise to their family — and even before they have officially exited the royal family on March 31. These people couldn’t wait a few days to make the announcement to lessen the shock of being lied to, which is undoubtedly being felt by their own family? Pretty skeezy, pretty lousy thing to do to people writing your paycheck.
They’ve still got that SussexRoyal.com website and Instagram account up, ignoring their own promise to get rid of it. It wouldn’t be that hard to keep the website and call it something else, but no dice. As Meghan reportedly said at the time, the royals can’t make them. Which is true enough, but normal people keep their word to others, and especially if they are family.
They couldn’t wait a few days for any of this? It points to a problem of impulse control, same as their on-the-fly announcement, which took aback the royal family, that they were leaving the royal family. Apparently they don’t plan anything, they shift plans on the fly, and they don’t care whose feelings they tread over.
If I were the Hollywood neighbors, I’d steer clear of these tenants. Apparently, they don’t keep their word on anything.
The owner of a shisha bar let customers into his bar via the back entrance. Last Wednesday around 21:00, a witness noticed signs of activity in a shisha bar on the street Köln-Aachener-Straße in Bergheim.
Last Wednesday around 21:00, a witness noticed signs of activity in a shisha bar on the street Köln-Aachener-Straße. Again and again the back door of the bar opened to let people in. When the police officers arrived, several people could be spotted in the bar. After a personal identification, the police officers filed an administrative offence report, as there was suspicion that the owner was violating the Corona Protection Ordinance. For such an offence, the new legal ordinance provides for a fine of 5000 euros, which is imposed by the regulatory authority.
Last Tuesday around 1 p.m. a 43-year-old man entered the church in the Berlin district of Alt-Karow and devastated the interior heavily. He then retreated to the organ balcony and screamed in an unknown language. When the police officers tried to approach the man, he picked up a wooden slat and fended off the forces. Then he continued to destroy the church furniture.After the arrival of further assistances, the man still did not calm down. He then hit a police officer with a wooden slat, who approached the angry man with a protective shield.Finally, the 43-year-old was arrested by police forces, while continuing to beat with the wooden slat. The police officers who were hit were not injured. After an identification examination, the man was presented to a doctor in a hospital.
The coronavirus crisis, which has killed over 22,000 and virtually destroyed the global economy, has seen government leaders, journalists and health officials try their hardest to promote open borders despite the threat to the global public.
The question is now why Europe and the rest of the world waited so long to close their borders, especially to hard-hit countries like China. The answer to that might have a lot to do with the next 20 quotes.
Emmanuel Macron: closing borders to Italy is a bad decision
French President Emmanuel Macron claimed on March 10 that Slovenia and Austria made “bad decisions” by severely restricting travel with Italy, which also neighbors France.
“I sincerely believe that these are bad decisions,” Macron remarked after he partook in crisis talks about the coronavirus with other EU leaders during a video conference.
Just a week later, France closed its border to every nation in Europe.
EC president Ursula von der Leyen: General travel bans are ineffective
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also said on March 13 that “general travel bans are not seen as being the most effective by the World Health Organization” after voicing her opposition to countries unilaterally closing their borders.
She made the remarks in response to the Czech Republic implementing an entry ban on foreigners and an exit ban on all Czechs on March 9 at the same time other EU nations, including Hungary, Austria, and Slovenia, all reintroduced border checks. The countries dropped passport-free travel in Europe’s Schengen zone and focused their checks on travelers from hard-hit Italy.
The EU issued a general travel ban at its external borders less than a week after von der Leyen chastised the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, and Slovenia for taking that action to close their borders.
Macron said EU should avoid ‘nationalist retreat’
French President Emmanuel Macron warned against hastily closing borders, which would amount to a “nationalist retreat”.
Warning of the danger of “nationalist isolation,” he said: “This virus has no passport. We must unify our forces, coordinate our responses and cooperate. European coordination is essential, and I will ensure it goes forward.”
WHO chief urges countries not to close borders to foreigners from China
The World Health Organization (WHO) pursued its dedication to open borders right until the end, with its head calling for countries to keep their borders open to China, where the coronavirus stemmed from.
“There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent. WHO stands ready to provide advice to any country that is considering which measures to take,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in early February.
Tedros expressed his disapproval of countries like Singapore, the United States, and Australia for closing their borders to China.
The Council on Foreign Relations think tank has said that Tedros owes China after the communist government backed him during his election to become director-general in 2017.
Tedros denies that he follows orders from Beijing but the WHO has been accused of dragging its feet in declaring a global health emergency. Tedros even praised China for demonstrating “transparency” during the crisis despite evidence the country covering up the outbreak and persecuted medical whistleblowers.
WHO chief: Closing borders increases ‘fear’ and ‘stigma’
Ghebreyesus also later called for borders to stay open in a statement that appeared to put political correctness before public health.
“We reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit,” Ghebreyesus said to the UN’s executive board in Geneva.
The WHO has long argued that closing borders to a country during an outbreak increases stigma towards that country and even whole ethnic groups.
Despite EU leaders and WHO officials being opposed to border closures, a huge survey by Reuters found that citizens were overwhelmingly in support of such measures, with Asian countries showing the highest support for border closures.
Angela Merkel says Germany against closing borders before she closed the borders
During German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first public address about the outbreak, she warned that border closures would not be enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
She said, “We in Germany, in any case, are of the opinion that border closures are not an appropriate response to the challenge.”
“This is a test for our solidarity, our common sense and care for each other. And I hope we pass the test,” she said, adding that she ruled out following Austria’s lead in banning visitors from Italy.
On March 18, Germany closed its borders to all EU travelers to help slow the spread of the virus in the country and reduce the number of new outbreaks.
The Atlantic: Trump’s decision to close border to European citizens makes no sense and is based on prejudice
The Atlantic magazine had this to say about Trump’s travel ban with Europe:
“President Donald Trump’s decision to ban most European citizens from traveling to the U.S., except those from the United Kingdom and Ireland, appears to make no sense, and to inject past grievances and prejudices into delicate scientific and political equations.”
The EU would ban all entry of non-EU citizens just over a week later. The Atlantic has not accused Europe of making its decision on past grievances or “prejudice”.
WHO executive council member says closing borders in Italy ‘excessive’ and ‘not based on scientific evidence’
WHO experts were constantly fighting countries over any type of travel ban. Italy, which has now suffered over 8,100 deaths, finally closed its border with China on Jan. 31. The country’s first officially confirmed coronavirus cases, on Jan. 23, were Chinese tourists from Wuhan who traveled across the country on a tourist bus with 100 other Chinese tourists before health authorities in Rome confirmed their diagnosis.
Despite the threat, it still took a week for Italy to ban all flights from China.
One of Italy’s top virologists told CNN that he believes Italy waited so long to ban flights from China out of fears of being labeled “racist”.
Chinese girl in Italy: Hug me! I’m not a virus
“Hug me! I’m not a virus” was the message printed on a placard carted around by Chinese girl on the streets of Milan in a viral video filmed during the coronavirus outbreak. The video, posted under the hashtags #ImNotVirus and #ImHuman, was not the only one. In another, a Chinese man in Florence asks passersby to hug him while he wears a face mask.
The first videos was posted on the Youtube channel New China TV, which is run by the Xinhua News Agency, the official state-owned press arm of China. The second was posted by the China Global Television Network, another state-owned broadcaster.
Florence mayor: Hug a Chinese person
Some Italians took up the call from China, including Florence’s mayor, Dario Nardella, who launched a nationwide campaign to ‘hug a Chinese person’, which was featured in a video posted to China’s People’s Daily, which is also run by the Chinese government. Nardella said he was running the campaign to “stem the hatred”.
Nardella actively encouraged people to hug strangers during the coronavirus outbreak, an act now aggressively discouraged by health authorities in both Italy and beyond.
Sweden’s top epidemiologist: closing borders ‘completely meaningless’
In Sweden, restaurants, bars, and shops are still open. Children still go to school, and people can still gather in groups as large up to 500 people. Much of the country’s strategy for dealing with coronavirus is based on advice from Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency.
He believes the country should build its immunity while protecting at-risk groups, which means he is doing little to prevent the virus from spreading.
When Denmark closed its borders, Tegnell was critical, saying that Denmark’s move was “completely meaningless.”
Despite Tegnell’s claims that sealing the border was ‘meaningless’, Sweden went ahead and banned entry for all non-EU citizens into the country, with the exception of asylum seekers.
Tegnell: Safe for those infected in the same household to go to school or work
The next comment from Tegnell has little to do with borders but illustrates his promotion of a radically open society during a time when many nations are doing all they can to halt the spread of the virus.
In what left many Swedes in disbelief, including the country’s prime minister, Tegnell said during a TV interview on March 18 that it was “safe” for people living in the same household as another person infected with coronavirus to continue going to work or school.
Bernie Sanders says he wouldn’t close borders over coronavirus
“But let’s not go back to the same old thing,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, who is currently running for Democratic presidential nomination. “Isn’t it interesting that a president who has been demagoguing and demonizing immigrants, the first thing that he could think about is closing down the border?”
WHO spokesperson claims closing borders will make those with coronavirus feel like the ‘enemy’
Other WHO officials also seemed to be concerned with political correctness over taking measures to contain the virus, including Margaret Harris, a World Health Organization spokesperson, who said that closing borders would suddenly make nations feel like they are ‘fine’.
“You divert a lot of resources when you are focused on closing borders, rather than focusing on protecting your health workers, preparing your health systems, and enhancing your disease surveillance,” she told The Intercept. “You mistakenly think, ‘Oh, we closed our borders. We’re fine.’ But giving people the sense that they are the enemy, that they are the problem, makes people hide because they become very frightened of the consequences. They’re not sure that identifying themselves with the authorities will be something that has good consequences for them as we saw with Ebola.”
Despite countries across Europe closing their borders, there appears to be very little evidence that countries assume closing the borders means the threat of coronavirus is over and that their citizens are ‘fine’. Instead, it is just one of many measures countries are taking to slow the spread of the virus and ensure that are not additional outbreaks to contend with.
CNN warns travel ban could stigmatize ‘countries and ethnicities’
In a sign that the media also associated travel bans with racism as opposed to legitimate from leaders that the coronavirus CNN warned Trump’s travel ban could “backfire” and have the effect of “stigmatizing countries and ethnicities”.
Closing border with Europe will have no impact on U.S. spread of coronavirus
Regarding Trump’s travel ban on European travelers during the coronavirus outbreak, Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University, sent a tweet arguing against it.
The EU appeared to disagree with him, as evidenced by the continent’s own decision to implement its own border lockdown a little over a week later to stem the coronavirus outbreak.
European health ministers: Closing frontiers would be ‘disproportionate and ineffective’
As deaths began to rise in Italy, Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza his German counterpart, Jens Spahn, and other health ministers from countries neighboring Italy met in Rome along with the EU’s health commissioner. They issued a statement that closing frontiers would be a “disproportionate and ineffective” measure.
Both countries subsequently closed their borders.
Chancellor: Britain remains committed to open borders
After President Trump issued a travel ban restricting Europeans from traveling into the United States, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said that Britain does not need to copy such a ban, saying that travel are “not going to have material effect” on spread of coronavirus.
“With regard to flight bans we are always guided by the science as we make our decisions here. The advice we are getting is that there isn’t evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans are going to have a material effect on the spread of the infections,” Sunak told the BBC.
Closing borders to Italy, China and Iran ‘would not have any effect’
After the Sunday Times reported on March 22 that flights from the worst-hit countries of China, Italy, and Iran are still continuing to land in London on a daily basis, bringing an estimated 7,500 people to Britain a week from those three countries, an unnamed government spokesperson reiterated the government’s position.
‘There is no evidence that interventions like closing borders or travel bans would have any effect on the spread of infection,” the spokesperson said.
EU ‘experts’: closing borders ‘ineffective’ for coronavirus
Citing unnamed EU “experts”, EU Observer quoted them as saying they believed closing borders was “ineffective” for battling the coronavirus.
The EU appears to have disagreed with its own experts in the end but by then it was too late.
As the coronavirus pandemic rages through Europe — where more than 250,000 people have now been diagnosed with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 15,000 have died — the foundational pillars of the European Union are crumbling one by one.
Faced with an existential threat, EU member states, far from joining together to confront the pandemic as a unified bloc, instinctively are returning to pursuing the national interest. After years of criticizing U.S. President Donald J. Trump for pushing an “America First” policy, European leaders are reverting to the very nationalism they have publicly claimed to despise.
Ever since the threat posed by coronavirus came into focus, Europeans have displayed precious little of the high-minded multilateral solidarity that for decades has been sold to the rest of the world as a bedrock of European unity. The EU’s unique brand of soft power, said to be a model for a post-national world order, has been shown to be an empty fiction.
In recent weeks, EU member states have closed their borders, banned exports of critical supplies and withheld humanitarian aid. The European Central Bank, the guarantor of the European single currency, has treated with unparalleled disdain the eurozone’s third-largest economy, Italy, in its singular hour of need. The member states worst affected by the pandemic — Italy and Spain — have been left by the other member states to fend for themselves.
The seeds of the European Union were planted in the ashes of the Second World War. In May 1949, Robert Schuman, one of the EU’s founding fathers, boldly announced the creation of new world system:
“We are carrying out a great experiment, the fulfillment of the same recurrent dream that for ten centuries has revisited the peoples of Europe: creating between them an organization putting an end to war and guaranteeing an eternal peace.”
The European Union, seven decades in the making, is now unravelling in real time — in weeks. After the dust of the coronavirus pandemic settles, the EU’s institutions will almost certainly continue to operate as before. Too much political and economic capital has been invested in the European project for European elites to do otherwise. However, the EU’s attraction as a post-national model for its own citizens, much less for the rest of the world, will have passed.
Recent examples of the unilateral pursuit of the national interest by European leaders, many of whom publicly espouse globalism but in times of desperation embrace nationalism, include:
France. On March 3, France confiscated all protective masks made in the country. “We will distribute them to healthcare professionals and to French people affected by the coronavirus,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter. On March 6, the French government forced Valmy SAS, a face mask manufacturer near Lyon, to cancel an order for millions of masks placed by the UK’s National Health Service.
Germany, March 4. Germany banned the export of medical protective equipment such as safety glasses, respiratory masks, protective coats, protective suits and gloves. On March 7, the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitungreported that German customs authorities were preventing a Swiss truck carrying 240,000 protective masks from returning to Switzerland, which is not a member of the EU. The Swiss government summoned the German ambassador to protest against the export ban. “In these contacts, the German authorities were urged immediately to release the blocked products,” a Swiss government spokesperson was quoted as saying. After facing a backlash from other EU member states, Germany on March 19 reversed course and lifted the export ban.
Austria, March 10. Austria became the first EU country to close its borders to another EU country. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced controls along the border with Italy and a ban on the entry of most travelers from there. “The utmost priority,” Kurz said, “is to prevent the spread and thus importing the illness into our society. There is therefore a ban on entry for people from Italy into Austria, with the exception of people who have a doctor’s note certifying that they are healthy.” The government also announced a ban on all air or rail travel to Italy. Austria’s decision threatened to undo the so-called Schengen Area, which entered into effect in 1995 and abolishes the need for passports and other types of control at the mutual borders of 26 European countries.
Slovenia, March 11. The government closed some border crossings with Italy and at those remaining open, had started making health checks to combat the spread of the virus.
Czech Republic, March 12. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš closed the country’s borders with Germany and Austria and also banned the entry of foreigners coming from other risky countries. On March 22, the government said that the border restrictions may last for up to two years.
Switzerland, March 13. The Swiss government imposed border controls with other European countries. Switzerland, although not a member of the European Union, is part of the Schengen zone.
Italy, March 13. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde dismissed calls by Italy for financial assistance to help it cope with the pandemic. After her comments rattled financial markets, Lagarde said that the ECB was “fully committed to avoid any fragmentation in a difficult moment for the euro area.” Italian President Sergio Mattarella replied that Italy had a right to expect solidarity rather than obstacles from beyond its borders.
Denmark, March 14. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen imposed border controls on all traffic by land, sea and air until at least April 13.
Poland, March 15. The government closed the country’s borders to everyone except Polish citizens or people with a Polish residence permit.
Germany, March 16. Germany, the largest and most powerful country in the European Union, introduced controls on its borders with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland. The move came after Germany registered 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 in just one day.
Hungary, March 16. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán halted all passenger traffic into Hungary would be halted and only Hungarian citizens allowed to enter the country.
Spain, March 16. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska decreed the establishment of controls at all land borders.
Serbia, March 16. President Aleksandar Vučić declared a state of emergency due to coronavirus. He condemned the EU for restricting exports of medical equipment and appealed for help from his “friend and brother,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “European solidarity does not exist,” Vučić said. “That was a fairy tale on paper. I have sent a special letter to the only ones who can help, and that is China.” Serbia applied to become a member of the EU in 2009. Accession talks began in January 2014.
Czech Republic, March 17. Czech authorities seized 110,000 face masks that China had sent to Italy. On March 23, the Czech Republic delivered the confiscated material to Italy. “There are 110,000 masks on board the bus as a gift to Italy, which is supposed to replace the material that was probably a Chinese gift for Italian compatriots,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Stichova.
Germany, March 18. Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare televised speech, urged all Germans to obey rules aimed at reducing direct social contact and avoiding as many new infections as possible. “It is serious,” she said. “Take it seriously. Since German reunification, actually, since World War Two, there has never been a challenge for our country in which acting in solidarity was so very crucial.” Merkel’s address to the nation was the first time in nearly 15 years in office that she had spoken to the country other than in her annual New Year’s address. She did not mention the European Union or other EU member states.
Belgium, March 22. The coronavirus has fueled tensions between Belgium, which is on lockdown, and the Netherlands, which is not. “In the Netherlands, shops are still open and meetings of 100 people are still allowed — these are breeding grounds for the virus,” said Marino Keulen, mayor of the Belgian border town Lanaken. Belgian authorities have set up barricades along the border and are ordering cars with Dutch license plates to turn around and return home. Keulen called the border checks a “signal to The Hague” to “quickly scale-up” its response and align with neighboring countries. “The Dutch government is incompetent and ridiculous in its response to the coronavirus crisis,” said Leopold Lippens, the mayor of Belgian seacoast town Knokke-Heist. “The Netherlands is doing nothing, so we have to protect ourselves.”
Spain, March 25. After failing to obtain assistance from the European Union, the Spanish government asked NATO for help in acquiring 1.5 million face masks and 450,000 respirators. NATO lacks this material and is limited to passing the Spanish request on to the remaining 29 allies, many of which are also members of the EU.
Poland, March 25. Polish authorities prevented hundreds of thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer from being exported to Norway, which is not a member of the EU. The Norwegian company Norenco manufactures and packages hand sanitizer for the Scandinavian market at a factory it owns in Poland. Norenco’s chief executive, Arne Haukland, said that after he applied for an export license, five men arrived at the factory, and demanded to be shown its stock of hand sanitizer. He said the company then received a letter ordering it to sell any hand sanitizer it had produced to the local city authorities in Lubin at a fixed price, under emergency coronavirus laws passed in Poland at the start of March. The seizure will exacerbate the supply problem faced by Norwegian hospitals.
France, March 25. President Emmanuel Macron, in an address to the nation at a military hospital in the eastern city of Mulhouse, which has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus, called for national, as opposed to European, unity: “When we engage in war, we engage fully, we mobilize united. I see in our country factors of division, doubts, all those who want to fracture the country when it is necessary to have only one obsession: to be united to fight against the virus. I call for this unity and this commitment.”
Meanwhile, in Italy, a nationwide survey published on March 18 found that 88% of Italians believe that the EU is not helping their country. Only 4% thought the opposite while 8% did not have an opinion. More than two-thirds (67%) of Italians said that they believe that being part of the European Union is a disadvantage for their country.
In an article titled, “Coronavirus Threatens European Unity,” Bill Wirtz, a political commentator based in Luxembourg, observed:
“As the coronavirus unfolds, Schengen countries are shutting their own borders. Whether or not they do so because they believe that a coordinated European response would be inefficient, or whether they believe that their own voters wouldn’t buy it — at this stage it’s irrelevant. The mere fact that borders have resurfaced in Europe is a failure for the integrity of the Schengen open borders agreement….
“A coordinated EU response to this crisis does not exist, and as the recommendations fall on deaf ears, Brussels is dealing with a crisis of confidence. There is no union-wide crisis response, coordinated testing or research. Worse than that, the EU institutions are bystanders to a war between countries, which are trying to limit exports of medical supplies in order to keep them for themselves. In times of crisis, the true influence and capacity of the EU has shown, and it is very little.
“As it stands, countries are dealing with a crisis of missing hospital beds, medical equipment, and overall resources. If the virus ever happens to lay lower than it does now, and the conclusion is drawn that the European Union was a powerless bystander in the eye of the storm (which it is), then the Schengen Agreement and open borders in Europe could be dealing with a difficult recovery.”
Darren McCaffrey, the political editor of the France-based news channel Euronews, wrote:
“In the past couple of weeks, solidarity has collapsed in the bloc. Countries have started imposing border controls on neighboring EU countries, and even Germany has taken steps to manage the flow of people entering and leaving its territory.
“On Tuesday, a 35-kilometer-long queue formed at the Polish-German border, where hundreds of Europeans — Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians — were stuck in trucks, cars and buses.
“As the EU must take measures to prevent the spread of the disease, many are worrying about the essence of the European Union and its four freedoms [the free movement of goods, services, capital and people].
“What is the EU if its own citizens can’t move freely? What is the single market if goods can’t cross Europe’s borders without hindrance?”
In an article titled, “Nations First: The EU Struggles for Relevance in the Fight against Coronavirus,” the German newsmagazine Der Spiegelnoted:
“As the pandemic takes hold in Europe, the decades-old union is showing its weaknesses. While the EU managed to survive Brexit and the euro crisis, the corona crisis may yet prove to be an insurmountable challenge.
“Instead of trying to come up with joint solutions, the Continent is becoming balkanized and is reverting to national solutions. Instead of helping each other out, EU countries are hoarding face masks like panicked Europeans are hoarding toilet paper. The early decisions made by some EU member states to refrain from exporting medical equipment to Italy — the EU country that has thus far been hit hardest by the pandemic — has even overshadowed the lack of European solidarity displayed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the refugee crisis.
“Europeans are even divided on the question as to how to combat the virus. Whereas Germany is eager to prevent as many people as possible from encountering the virus and becoming infected, the Netherlands wants to see as many healthy people as possible fight off COVID-19, thus becoming immune. The signal is clear: When things get serious, every member state still looks out for itself first — even 60 years after the founding of the community.”
The accused Tunisian is suspected of having committed a robbery in a supermarket in the Schwerin district of Lankow on the 25th of March 2020 at 10:45 am. In the course of the local search, the accused and another suspect (32-year-old Tunisian) were identified by the officers of the Schwerin police headquarters. The two accused were taken into custody by the police officers. The 31-year-old resisted the police officers. He apparently coughed on them intentionally, saying that he had the infectious disease Corona. After a medical examination and due to the lack of symptoms, the two suspects were released from custody to their registration address, the Stern Buchholz refugee shelter.The two suspects were charged with robbery. During the course of the evening, in the asylum shelter, the 31-year-old repeatedly disobeyed the instructions of the security personnel there as well as the police officers deployed. Once again, the accused tried to sneeze and spit in the direction of the officers and repeatedly stated that he had become infected with the corona virus.Thereupon he was detained and further charges of trespassing and assault were filed.On the basis of the statement that he was infected with the coronavirus and his unruly behaviour, the Schwerin District Court issued an order for the detention of the accused until the 28th of March 2020.A smear test was made on the accused to verify the truth of his statement. Further appropriate rulings will be made after the results of the investigation are received.
