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.
Everyone paying attention knows full well by now that electromechanical ventilators are the most critically needed and longest lead-time items required for saving the most vulnerable Covid-19 infected patients — the ones who develop secondary pneumonia and would otherwise literally drown in their own fluids if not for this artificial breathing technology.
According to BBC News on Thursday, “the NHS [British National Health Service] has just over 8,000 ventilators,” and is seeking help from the vacuum cleaner company, Dyson, to rapidly manufacture more. So far so good, and we all wish Sir James Dyson’s company Godspeed. At the same time, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo likens ventilators to “missiles in World War II.” Therelated news article reports that, “…There are about 160,000 ventilators in existing hospital treatment rooms across the United States and the Centers for Disease Control have a Strategic National Stockpile of 12,700 ventilators and the Pentagon announced this week that they can contribute 2,000 more military-style ventilators to the total, which would bring the number to just under 175,000 ventilator-equipped beds in America.” Eight thousand ventilators are presently available in the UK versus 175,000 in the US.
Looking back and forth across the Atlantic, these numbers are interesting and upon inspection, tell a cautionary tale regarding nationalized versus privately managed healthcare. If we compare the populations of the UK with the US, we find that the UK has 65 million people whereas the US is home to 330 million people. Therefore, in the UK, each resident must potentially share each ventilator with 8,125 of their compatriots. In the US, each resident must only compete with 1,886 of our neighbors if we wind up in the ICU. The ratio of population between the two countries calculates to 5.07 times more people in the US than the UK but the ratio of ventilators is tipped in favor of 21.9 times more ventilators in the US than in the UK. US residents are therefore 4.3 times more likely to have a ventilator available when one is required than our UK cousins. In the US, this situation didn’t stem from central planning but instead from market forces. For the UK, with the benefit of the NHS’s top down planned wisdom, the opposite is true.
The “universal healthcare” nirvana that Biden, Sanders, and progressives long for with envy doesn’t look so good when the chips are down. It might be poorly timed phraseology to caution, “don’t hold your breath,” nevertheless, don’t hold your breath waiting for MSNBC, CNN, or any of the left-wing alphabet media to point out this glaring and life-threatening disconnect between the promise and the reality of centrally planned healthcare. We already know the Democrat candidates never will, as they instead continue to blame President Trump for every date and detail that is slightly off while traitorously refusing to report the real story.
Health experts warned this week that Turkey’s Coronavirus epidemic was out of control and that deaths from the disease could soon be on a par with Italy or Spain.
The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network reported on the dire situation. “The recent data on cases and death tolls shows that the situation is out of control in Turkey. If the necessary measures are not taken, Turkey will be like Italy or Spain, where the daily death toll is in the hundreds,” Emrah Altındiş, a Turkish professor from Harvard University’s Medical Faculty, told BIRN.
Turkey reported its first Coronavirus patient on March 11, but the total number of cases in the country is already 1 872. The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) urged the government on March 23 to be more transparent about the pandemic.
Another doctor interviewed by BIRN noted: “What I observe in my hospital and the general situation is that the real numbers are at least two to three times higher than the numbers that the government announced. The Covid-19 pandemic is now out of control.”
A baker in the city of Arezzo was attacked by a migrant after she asked the man to wait outside before being served to prevent gatherings in the shop and the spread of Wuhan coronavirus.
The incident occurred earlier this week and saw the African migrant, who was described by the baker as being slightly intoxicated, enter the Boutique del Pane bakery while other customers were inside and was politely asked to wait outside until it was his turn to be served.
The migrant reacted highly negatively to the suggestion and began to berate the baker and the female customers in the shop, shouting “You Italians are shit!”
“I was serving a client when this young black guy entered, initially calm. I told him that he had to stay outside, that he had to respect like all the rules: in the shop no more than one at a time. And he has lost his mind,” the baker said, in comments reported by Italian newspaper La Nazione.
“The bad news was when he started to wreak havoc. He ran his hands over the shelves and threw everything on the ground, smashing what happened to be within his range: tins, glass jars, beer bottles. An uncontrollable fury,” she added.
Both the baker and a female customer were then attacked by the migrant who pushed them up against a wall and began hitting them.
“I yelled at the client to call the police; he ran away at that point, without taking anything away. Fortunately, because at that time there was no one else who could give us a hand. The other shops were all closed. I wouldn’t have known who to ask for help,” the baker said.
The incident comes after a 60-year-old man in Novara was attacked by an African migrant after he was asked to keep a safe distance to maintain social distancing.
“He started to rail against the Italians calling them ‘bastards and racists’,” the victim said.
Other countries have also seen tensions after lockdowns were put in place to halt the spread of coronavirus, including Britain, where youths set fire to food delivery vans and attacked police earlier this week.
It goes without saying that the world was sent into panic mode because of the coronavirus pandemic. This was, in part, due to predictions of widespread infection and deaths from the virus, particulary those of British scientist Neil Ferguson. His report, published on March 16, predicted 2.2 million Americans and over a half a million Brits would be killed by the virus. The report was taken seriously, prompting the United States, UK, and much of the world to effectively shut down to slow down the spread of the virus. But now Ferguson is walking back those doomsday predictions.
Ferguson’s report from Imperial College, which White House and other officials took seriously, said that if the U.S. and U.K. did not shut down for 18 months, and isolation measures were not taken, “we would expect a peak in mortality (daily deaths) to occur after approximately 3 months.” His “models” showed overflowing hospitals and ICU beds.
“For an uncontrolled epidemic, we predict critical care bed capacity would be exceeded as early as the second week in April, with an eventual peak in ICU or critical care bed demand that is over 30 times greater than the maximum supply in both countries,” the report reads.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, reportedly said the administration was particularly focused on the Imperial College report’s conclusion that entire households should stay in isolation for 14 days if any member suffered from COVID-19 symptoms.
The UK should now be able to cope with the spread of the covid-19 virus, according to one of the epidemiologists advising the government.
Neil Ferguson at Imperial College London gave evidence today to the UK’s parliamentary select committee on science and technology as part of an inquiry into the nation’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
He said that expected increases in National Health Service capacity and ongoing restrictions to people’s movements make him “reasonably confident” the health service can cope when the predicted peak of the epidemic arrives in two or three weeks. UK deaths from the disease are now unlikely to exceed 20,000, he said, and could be much lower.
Other experts have also suggested that the world overreacted to the coronavirus pandemic. Standford University professors Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya wrote in the Wall Street Journal that current estimates about the fatality rate of the coronavirus “may be too high by orders of magnitude,” and based on their modeling, the coronavirus could have a mortality rate of 0.01% — that’s ten times lower than the seasonal flu. Does that mean it will be that low? Not necessarily. Does that mean there may have been an overreaction by world governments because of faulty research by experts they rely on? Yeah, maybe.
