How Does Sweden-Like Croatia Compare to Virus Stalinist Slovenia?

Since mid-2020 Croatia has been EU's Florida

Marko Marjanović 1181 5

UPDATE, September 25: Seems I spoke too soon. Now Croatian PM also proclaims a French-style vaccine/test passport will be implemented. Speculation in Croatia that this is due to pressure from the EU.

During the spring 2020 wave of virus hysteria Croatia imposed a lockdown along with the rest of Europe (except Sweden and Belarus), however during the subsequent waves, Croatia stayed open, and imposed only light Sweden-like restrictions, and has rejected vaccine passports.

(During the second wave the lockdown had started to be reimposed, but then an earthquake struck a week into the clampdown and the “anti-virus” measures were eased at first temporarily to help with earthquake relief, but were then never brought back.)

Its neighbor Slovenia [where I’m from originally] on the other hand, has been a poster child for virus Maoism. It has locked down for every single wave with measures that included curfews, a ban on hiking (a big one in the outdoorsy nation), and a ban on exiting the country’s tiny municipalities (when you were allowed outside at all).

Now it has already instituted one of the most Stalinist vaccine passport regimes in the world. The unvaccinated and untested may not enter malls, bars, pay for gasoline (except electronically in the few petrol stations that have that feature), work, or see a doctor (but some GPs have publicly declared they won’t be checking passports). Moreover, the government is threatening that soon the paid test option will be taken away, and that only the injected will have the passport.

So how did the two nations fare COVID-wise? Croatia, having followed in Sweden’s footsteps, but also having welcomed 10 million international tourists in 2021 (it only has a population of 4 million) must have done far worse, right?

Actually, Croatia recorded 2,093 PCR-positive deaths per million, to Slovenia’s 2,167. On top of that locked-down Slovenia actually, experienced a higher daily deaths peak than the relatively free Croatia.

Croatia also had a better COVID outcome than its other lockdown neighbors; Bosnia at 3,159 PCR-positive deaths, Hungary at 3,130, and Montenegro at 2,959. (And Italy across the Adriatic sea with 2,160.)

The only neighbor Croatia compares to unfavorably is Serbia with 898 PCR-positive deaths per million, however Serbia itself is no poster child for lockdown fanaticism either.

Croatia’s path to becoming EU’s Florida (remember that DeSantis also locked down during the first hysteria wave) has been somewhat accidental, guided more by intuition and chance than the kind of hard-nosed intellectual sleuthing that was done by Florida’s governor, but its leaders, particularly its president (more so than the premier), have gradually gained in confidence.

In the video that follows, president Milanović (Social Democrat) loses patience with a journalist loading a question with a statement that Croatia’s 50 percent vaccination rate is “not sufficient”. He has previously repeatedly stated that if there are people who do not want the jab it is not his job to pressure or to coerce them. He then goes on to say he can’t comprehend why CNN and its ilk continue to spread panic and that “since New Year’s” he has been “hearing nothing but drivel”.

The part where he explains that since the EU has a high vaccination rate it therefore has no reason to concern itself with Croatia’s vaccination rate since it is already highly protected is pretty cool as well.

In the next one — that I unfortunately don’t have with subtitles — he says:

I said something more than six months ago when it became apparent that vaccine was a fact, and that I still believe. That the very moment when there are more vaccines available than people interested in taking them, it’s game over. I no longer see the sense in all of this that we’re doing. I see no sense in these masks either — if you are vaccinated. If you are not, that is another thing. But you are not protecting me. You are protecting yourself.

To force nearly 50 percent of people who are not vaccinated and who clearly are not exactly burning with desire to get vaccinated — that is difficult. That is a tall order for any democratic government. That is a tall order for any autocratic government!

I said in our meeting that the best message to the public is that if you are vaccinated your life will no longer be miserable, and that you are going to live without this mask. If not, then all of this has no sense. I do not see a way to use repression to force or stimulate people to do this [vaccinate].

And it can not be an argument that if you did not get vaccinated you are burdening the health system. That is inhumane. For that health system accepts you whether you are an alcoholic, whether you smoke — maybe you pay slightly more for cigarettes — , it accepts you because it is social, it accepts you also if you fall ill with corona, or if you fall ill with the flu, it accepts you also mainly because you paid into it over all the years and you thus also have the right to fall ill!

Those who are vaccinated, and that is soon the majority, somewhere it already is, they are going to live normally. And those who are not — I have to admit I do not understand that the most — but I do not want us to stomp on them, for they are also not stomping on me.

So the guy is not exactly doctrinaire anti-cultist, but for a head of state in the EU he’s downright reasonable. He is totally rejecting the covidian notion that the unvaccinated are a danger that the vaccinated must continue to be protected from.

With the Social Democrat president being so outspokenly against vax passports the conservative PM Plenković knows he’s not going to get attacked from that angle allowing him to breathe more easily, with the result that he has confirmed he will seek no such scheme:

Yeah, that’s Croatia teaching some people (hopefully Slovenians) relative liberty and a measure of common sense…

Meanwhile, travelers to Italy and Spain are reportedly encountering absurd levels of mask-wearing:

5 Comments
  1. ken says

    So how do you kill a test (PCR) that is acknowledged around the world, the cdc, the who, etc, to be extremely error prone and pretty much useless yet EVERYBODY uses it as THE indicator of the fake virus? Heck, it’s not even looking for any virus…

    Like Globull Warming,,, no matter the data,,, no matter how many times the talking points are debunked,,, no matter that EVERY forecast made has been wrong,,,, IT LIVES!

    Talk about cognitive dissonance!

    Reply
  2. Mark says

    Good to see you’re not dead, Marko. I guess the killing power of the eevul virus is overrated. Or perhaps you never had it at all.

    Reply
  3. Eric the Red says

    The right constantly makes this mistake: You can’t defeat the left’s moral claims with facts. A moral claim requires faith, which often flies in the face of reality, and furthermore requires sacrifice to hold onto. So real-world facts and logical analysis mean nothing to those who worship the holy vaxx narrative. They’ve not only been assimilated into the collective hivemind, but they’re also convinced they’re more moral than you are. Absolutely nothing is going to change their minds, not even when they’re knocking at death’s door.

    Reply
    1. Raptar Driver says

      Exactly!
      The only thing they understand is action, words mean nothing to them.

      Reply
  4. Marshall Lentini says

    Doesn’t matter. Every country, state, and municipality is just one election away from going full gay and vax tyranny.

    You are either prepared to suffer to avoid this weird genetic experiment or you are not.

    Reply

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