Translated material
The last dissident of Europe
Cycle " Disaster Medicine "
The last dissident of Europe.
Report on how the president of Belarus prohibited coronavirus
Project team, May 20, 2020
Alexander Lukashenko begins his sixth presidential election campaign in the midst of Pandemia. The head of Belarus defiantly does not declare quarantine, reporting on low mortality from coronavirus. However, his optimistic mood does not quite reflect the realities of the epidemic.
The Belarusian authorities exert unprecedented pressure on journalists, covering the situation in the country. Work on a foreign media without accreditation of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry threatens reporters with a high fine and administrative charge. Therefore, for considerations of the author’s security, we hide his name under the pseudonym.
"We think that this will not touch us"
“In this distraught, who has lost the guidelines, there will be people who condemn us for the place and the time of this sacred action. I want to tell them humanly: do not rush to draw conclusions, and even more so to condemn us ”-with these words, Alexander Lukashenko, surrounded by military command and senior officials, takes the Victory Parade in Minsk-the only real parade of Victory on May 9, 2020 in the midst of the Pandemia of the Coronavirus.
The stands are filled with veterans, military personnel and their relatives, several thousand military men are marching along Masherov Avenue, including the female ceremonial calculation, and thousands of spectators look at the city streets at the city.
“They called me from the administration of the Oktyabrsky district and politely offered to visit the parade, invited to the third stand. I began to be indignant, and the conversation ended, ”Anna, a resident of Minsk, told the project.
Most recently, Anna had died father, and she and her mother were ill with heavy pneumonia. She had no desire to visit the places of mass accumulations of people.
Anna is only one of many residents of Minsk, whom officials tried to call on the parade. Contrary to the recommendations of the World Health Organization to postpone or cancel mass events, the authorities not only did not refuse to conduct the parade, but also lowered the ordering of the order to visit it.
“They promised that there would be pluses at the sessions, they would put the offset. The university administration received a message. Some delights promised when checking into a hostel, ”Dmitry, a student of one of the Minsk universities, told the project.
Dmitry himself did not go to the parade. All his acquaintances, as he assures, also: "did not work."
The fact that despite the ordering of the authorities this year, the parade turned out to be a much less popular event than before, was noticeably naked eye. In the area open for all visitors to the fence, closer to passing columns, there were only small groups of people: in other years, it was not possible to push through in this place. The audience was ten times less than usual. After the parade in the center of Minsk - no mass festivities and other signs of the holiday. Only on Victory Square officials laid flowers to the eternal fire.
According to the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 15 thousand people visited the parade in the e -year. For comparison: 250 thousand inhabitants came to the parade in 2017, the authorities did not announce the data given for 2018-2019.
15 
The few walking are not afraid to get infected. “If a person feels well, he has good immunity, then he has nothing to fear. On the contrary, he will illuminate and be able to help other people. One can help a dozen, ”Mr. Mark argues, adding that it is still better to behave“ neatly ”. A young couple with children tells the “project” correspondent that does not use public transport and does not go to the cinema, but went to the parade because the holiday. “We are afraid, but we think that somehow it is already a decline. We got the impression that we were ill with a mild one and a half months ago, we had the same symptoms, and we think that it would not affect us anymore, ”says Anatoly.
Deputy of the House of Representatives (Lower House of Parliament) Sergey Klishevich to the question of the “project” about the need of the parade at such a moment said that “the medical system allows you to carry out any measures without consequences for humans”. He assures that the event will enter "on a par with the parades of 1941 and 1945."
"After Easter and Radunitsa, we did not see any surge of incidence!" - Klishevich assured the correspondent of the "Project" at the color laying ceremony.
He did not mention that a week after Easter, which was celebrated this year on April 19, the outbreak of coronavirus was recorded in several monasteries - including the one that Lukashenko himself visited .
Klishevich speaks exactly in the spirit of the Belarusian State Propaganda : there is a virus, but the situation is under control. However, sociological surveys show that most citizens are afraid of a deterioration in the situation - for example, the data of the Satio research center show that the respondents are disturbing the possibility of a collapse of the healthcare system, and more than half are sure that over the next month the number of infected ones will increase. And there are several reasons for this.
"We cannot judge anything, and this is trouble"
A girl with pigtails enthusiastically wits braids to her dolls. Nearby on a variegated sofa against the background of the carpet, the grandmother is busy knitting. "Be healthy, granddaughter!" - says grandmother for a sneezing child. Then she sneezes herself and disappears with the sound of a bursting balloon. “During the spring holidays, protect the children from direct contact with the elderly,” the inscription on the screen will admit.
This is social advertising shown on state television of Belarus. The actress, who played a grandmother in the video, said that the president personally approved the video.
While state television shows humorous videos and optimistic reports on the successful fight against pandemia, information about the new foci of the epidemic appears on the Internet - those that official media do not talk about.
In mid -April, the district center of the column of 70 kilometers from Minsk began to be called the "Belarusian Bergamo" - by analogy with one of the foci of coronavirus in Italy. The first message about the coronavirus in the columns appeared on April 7 - the conductor of the local bus park fell ill. From this moment, the countdown began, a resident of the column Maxim tells the “project”: “The whole carbonifier stood up, the routes did not go, and rumors about infections began. Then the private opinions of the doctors began to creep out that a great infection, that the infectious disease was clogged. Although it is small, two floors of everything. ”
What happens to those who challenged Lukashenko in the upcoming elections
Sergei Tikhanovsky, author of the popular YouTube channel “Country for Life” in March, announced his intention to nominate as president. He traveled through the regions and held meetings with his supporters, where a sharp criticism of Alexander Lukashenko sounded.
Tikhanovsky was detained for 15 days on May 6. He was sentenced to arrest in January - for participating in the action in support of independence in December 2019. On May 18 and 19, he was added another 30 days of arrest in three cases. According to him, in total seven more protocols have been drawn up for him.
After his detention, pressure began on his supporters. According to the Vesna human rights center from May 6 to 13, about 120 people were detained, who previously came to a meeting with Tikhanovsky, went to stocks in his support or participated in other protests.
The maximum term (25 days) received a blogger from Mozyr Alexander Tsukanov, who was found guilty of participating in an unauthorized mass event and in disrespect for the court.
An administrative arrest received even an ambulance paramedic from Lida, who in April went to a meeting with Tikhanovsky and told a blogger about the situation in the city.
There was no exact information about what was happening in the city until April 18, the head physician of the district hospital, did not urge local residents to avoid contacts with each other, sparingly explaining that the situation with coronavirus in the area is not easy: “A 134 bed was opened on the basis of our district hospital. The number of patients with pneumonia does not decrease, ”the doctor announced.
This interview appeared in the popular blog "Belarus of the brain" with the post "The head physician in column begges to sit at home." After that, journalists drew attention to the small town. Photos of fresh graves at the local cemetery appeared in the media, and panic rumors crawled in the city that patients began to bring to children's camps around the city. It was believed that 70-80 people were sick in the city, said the former chief of the column police, deputy of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly Ivan Mamaiko.
Then the Stolbtsovskaya district newspaper Pramen, controlled by the administration, published a video from the central hospital of the district, which was shown - there are no people in the corridors, the beds are empty. In confirmation of the report, the editor -in -chief of the newspaper said that there were no dead in the hospital due to pneumonia. And only on May 3, a month after the first messages about the sick in column, the head physician of the hospital admitted that seven people who had a diagnosis of Covid-19 died.
“As a layman, I can say, due to the lack of information from the state, we cannot judge anything, and this is trouble. Closing information, it only contributes to the spread of rumors. Because there is a request for information, but people do not receive it, ”says a resident of the column Maxim.
On May 6, the story of the situation in the column was made by the Russian Channel One, telling about the sharp growth of the number of coronavirus sick. After that, the Foreign Ministry of Belarus deprived the filming group of accreditation, and the Belarusian media called the plot Fakeov .
Concomitant disease
At the very beginning of the gain in the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Belarus, an unexpected short -term peak can be seen: on April 10 and 11, the number of cases revealed sharply jumped up to 400, albeit before, and after it was at 200 cases per day.
New cases of coronavirus infection in Belarus
According to the official data of the Ministry of Health of the Republic
Source: Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus
It so coincided that it was precisely these days in Belarus that the Mission of WHO experts was located, which noted that the data should be open and understandable to the population. Perhaps the authorities revealed more complete statistics for two days to make a pleasant foreign delegation. After her departure, the numbers returned to the previous meanings.
The first case of coronavirus in the country was registered on February 27. At first, the Ministry of Health followed the mitigation strategies - the export and isolation of the sick, tracking their contacts. The department was open in its work, which is generally atypical for Belarus-a special telegram channel was even created. This continued until March 19, until Lukashenko called Coronavirus “psychosis” and stated that Belarus would suffer more from panic than from the virus.
Soon after this, the openness of the Ministry of Health sharply decline, and press releases turned into unreadable rebuses, in which even the number of new cases was not directly given.
Here is an example of one of them from March 30: “So over the past day 110 people were hospitalized, 144 people were discharged, including those who had contacts with infection carriers. At the moment, 47 people who have a Covid-19 test in the near future have been discharged or expected to be discharged. Medical observation and treatment of 105 people continues. ” In the decoding, this meant that in total 152 cases were recorded from the beginning of the epidemic (the amount of prescribed ones awaiting extracts and under treatment).
Since the visit of experts, the Ministry of Health has repeatedly changed the form of publication of statistics: sometimes he gave a total number of cases, sometimes only those who are in the hospital, sometimes published a breakdown by regions, sometimes not. The last few weeks in official statistics are given the number of recovered, the number of registered cases and the number of dead.
Sometimes the authorities themselves give a reason to discuss the correspondence of official numbers real. So, on May 3, at a meeting of the government, Lukashenko showed a printout of a schedule for the increase in the number of sick. If you look closely at the schedule that it shows, you can notice that on it the number of registered new cases on April 28 and 29 exceeds 1000. However, according to official statistics, for the entire time of the epidemic, the daily growth has never been more than 1000 people.
Separate doubts are the statistics of mortality. In total, from the moment of registration of the first illness in the country, 160 people died from the virus. The percentage of mortality from the number of sick at the same time is significantly lower than even in Russia, where death statistics also raise big questions.
Coronavirus in Belarus and neighboring countries, May 18, 2020
The percentage of the dead from the sick
The number of sick people for a million people
Source: WorldMeters.info
The reason for this is most likely the same as in Russia: often coronavirus is not indicated by the main cause of death.
Natalia worked as a nurse of the dental office in the Minsk ambulance hospital. On April sixth, she felt bad, and a week later she was put in the hospital. She had all the signs of pneumonia caused by coronavirus: tomography showed double -sided inflammation with small foci, the very “matte glass”, a decrease in the transparency of the pulmonary tissue in the pictures, one of the most common symptoms in coronavirus. The analysis for Koronavirus was confirmed, later it was connected to the Ivl, but on April 20 it died.
The main cause of death in the official conclusion is atherosclerotic heart disease, says her son Denis. Covid-19 is indicated only as a concomitant disease.
"I could not prove contacts"
The Mogilev, Christina came home from Vitebsk - a city where, according to official figures, a significant number of infected were recorded - and wanted to take an analysis in the clinic.
- When I arrived in Mogilev in early April, I was self -isolated and sat at home. Then the temperature began, I went to the clinic so that I was discharged a certificate for study. And there I wanted to check, but they refused me because I could not prove the contacts, they told me to go to the infectious disease.
Christine managed to make a test in an infectious diseases hospital, but for this she had to spend several days in a hospital with infected.
- When I arrived [to an infectious diseases hospital], they told me that hospitalization is a prerequisite. They did an analysis and put me in a ward in which there were seven people. The two then found coronavirus, and I became a contact of the first level.
As a result, Christina’s tests turned out to be negative, and she was discharged.
Coronavirus testing
The number of tests per coronavirus per million people, May 18, 2020
Source: WorldMeters.info
Christina’s case is typical: many residents of Belarus say that they do not always manage to achieve tests the first time. Anna, a resident of Minsk, also says that her and her parents were made only when her father was already put in the hospital with pneumonia. The tests are not carried out by everyone and not from the first handling, confirms Alexei, a physician of one of the Minsk hospitals: most often the doctor is made by the doctor when repeated treatment based on the symptoms.
Doctors without instructions
- From the middle of the zero in medicine, I have never participated in normal exercises on especially dangerous infections. So with the “crown”, we ourselves went to the infectious disease to watch how everything was organized, our laboratory was not aware that it was necessary to process costumes. At the moment, clear recommendations on how to organize work, put on, remove PPE, personal protective equipment - no. On a personal initiative on the Internet, they looked at the Internet, and says Alexander, a resuscitator of one of the Minsk hospitals, he asked to change his name, as he was afraid of dismissal due to communication with the press.
According to the Belarusian doctors with whom the project communicated, the main problem now is the lack of clear work algorithms, which is why, in fact, each hospital works at its discretion. The resuscitator Alexander says that doctors did not receive guidelines for anti -epidemic work and the organization of the work of the gateways - the premises between the “clean” and the infected area. Alexey - his name was also changed at his request, a doctor from another Minsk hospital, claims that the lack of sorting of patients by severity is very interfering, and calls the receipt of patients “random”. “There is an uncontrolled infection (in the whole country), people go asymptomatic, and then the manifestation makes itself felt,” says Alexei.
“This was not even in 2009 during the pig flu. Поступают пациенты разного возраста, в основном старше 55. О мерах безопасности до заболевания людей мы не спрашиваем», — рассказывает Виктор, хирург из Витебской области, который сейчас занимается лечением пациентов с пневмониями.
Медики, способные хоть как-то пролить свет на ситуацию, находятся под сильным давлением. Общаться с прессой они боятся из-за возможных последствий. Например, через несколько дней после репортажа журналистов портала tut.by, посвященного работе медиков с больными коронавирусом, по неизвестным причинам был уволен главный врач Витебской больницы скорой медицинской помощи Сергей Лазарь . Чиновники заверяют, что увольнение никак не связано с репортажем, сам врач комментариев не давал.
Все белорусские врачи говорят с «Проектом» только на условиях анонимности.
Белорусские власти, как и российские, не говорят о числе заразившихся врачей, но, по словам собеседников «Проекта», их очень много. По словам реаниматолога Александра, за последние месяцы иногда на больничный уходили по 25 врачей одновременно. Еще одна его коллега умерла.
Зачастую врачи увольняются, так как не хотят работать с коронавирусом. Многих врачей пенсионного возраста отправляют в отпуска или увольняют по соглашению сторон.
Больницы Белоруссии, как и российские, оказались не готовы к эпидемии. Прежде всего, говорят врачи, не хватает средств индивидуальной защиты (СИЗов). По словам Александра, СИЗов достаточно только в реанимации. В остальных отделениях — острая нехватка. «В отделениях — по-разному, чаще плохо. В детских поликлиниках две-три недели назад не было ни респираторов, ни очков, ни костюмов, только маски», — говорит он.
Виктор из Витебской области говорит, что СИЗы врачи используют крайне экономно:
«То есть респиратор, халаты, носим где-то по 1 неделе. Ну и халаты, хирургические костюмы стираем все еще дома сами».
К заявлениям президента о том, что эпидемия — лишь «массовый психоз», врачи относятся как к бреду, говорит Виктор из Витебской области: «Медработники просто смеются с этих заявлений и матерятся, это полное неуважение к нашим словам и нашему труду».
Недокарантин
По состоянию на 19 мая в Белоруссии официально объявили о 31 508 случаях заболевания и 175 смертях. В стране больше 3300 случаев заболевания на миллион человек — этот показатель немногим ниже Британии и в полтора раза выше, чем в России. Но в отличие от Британии и России карантин в стране не объявляют.
Лукашенко неоднократно подчеркивал, что введет карантин, если того потребует ситуация. Он объясняет это просто: иначе не выдержит экономика. Чиновники расшифровывают его заявления: только в Минске в случае карантина работу бы потеряли 465 тысяч человек , говорил председатель минского горисполкома Анатолий Сивак.
Рестораны, бары и кафе в стране работают, но многие на грани закрытия , сокращают время работы, убирают лишние столы. Количество посетителей в торговых центрах и метро значительно сократилось. Из-за «полукарантина» в сложном положении оказались школы.
Коронавирус и предвыборная кампания
«Отказ от карантина был предопределен по двум причинам. Первая из них — это экономика», — говорит белорусский политический аналитик Артем Шрайбма, — «Мы вошли в рецессию еще до начала пандемии, и Лукашенко не имел ресурсов, чтобы отпустить людей не работать в течение нескольких месяцев. Такие эксперименты с экономикой в избирательный год делать еще сложнее».
«Вторая — это психологическая причина. Лукашенко был убежден, что этот вирус не опаснее предыдущего, что СМИ раздувают хайп, что это кому-то выгодно, и мы не должны прогибаться под внешними интересами. Когда стало понятно, что болезнь серьезная, Лукашенко как авторитарный лидер просто не мог свернуть назад. Это просто черта его характера. Его амплуа — народный герой, который не ломается под грузом проблем, проводит парады несмотря ни на что».
Школьные каникулы продлевали два раза, пока президент не заявил , что с 20 апреля детям пора возвращаться на учебу. С тех пор власти пристально следят за посещаемостью. «Считают детей утром на входе, потом забег администрации по кабинетам через пять минут после начала занятия, лишь бы в 8.20 в отделе образования знали сколько в каждой школе детей», — рассказал «Проекту» завуч одной из школ Гомеля. По его словам, в реальности в школу ходит около трети детей.
Однако официальной информации о заразившихся детях или контактах первого или второго уровня в школы не поступает, и это вызывает панику среди родителей. «Особенно страшно было в марте, когда малейшее приближение скорой к школе — и следом звонки родителей с вопросом «кого забрали с коронавирусом?», — добавил педагог.
* * *
Уже больше недели количество новых заболевших превышает 900 человек в день. Это не помешало Лукашенко объявить: после парада заболеваемость пневмониями в Минске якобы упала в два раза.
«И я вчера перекрестился: дай Бог, чтобы мы и дальше так по пневмониям прошлись», — добавил президент.
8 мая 2020 года в Белоруссии официально стартовала президентская предвыборная кампания.