The Poster Child for Lockdown Now Has One of the World’s Highest COVID Fatality Rates of the Autumn Wave

After patting itself on the back in spring the Czech Republic now has one of the world’s highest per-capita Covid fatality rates

Despite the reimposition of a national lockdown in October, the Czech Republic is struggling to contain the second wave of Covid-19. Healthcare services are under severe strain, the economy is ailing and there is no end in sight to the restrictions. Held up as an example of the efficacy of lockdowns during the first wave, the Czech government’s uncertainty about how to tackle the second shows a fundamental problem with lockdown as a way of tackling the virus.

It has been quite a turnaround. Top of the class in the spring and confident enough to declare victory over the virus in the summer, the Czech Republic now slumps at or near the bottom of the global league tables, with one of the world’s highest per-capita Covid fatality rates, and one of the highest infection rates.

It is a far cry from the government’s self-assured, unhesitating response in the spring, when it imposed one of Europe’s first national lockdowns on 12 March. At that point, the country had only 116 recorded cases. Second time around, the government has been accused of not locking down soon enough, with 10,000 to 15,000 cases being confirmed per day and Covid-related deaths climbing to between 150 and 200 per day. This last number might seem small by UK standards, but the population of the UK is almost seven times larger, meaning the daily death rates here are now as high or higher than anything yet seen in Britain. The Czech National Bank has downgraded its economic forecast, with a contraction of 8.2 per cent expected this year.

It may be a matter of debate whether Covid’s resurgence in the Czech Republic can properly be called a second wave, given its transmission was so limited previously. But Czechs do not feel they are facing Covid for the first time. The all-too-familiar and much loathed restrictions are back, while deputy prime minister Jan Hamáček has confirmed that the state of emergency will last until the festive season.

In stark contrast to the first wave, though, the autumn response has been characterised by uncertainty and division. Mass anti-lockdown protests have been held in Prague, leading to confrontations with police. And the near-unanimous acceptance of face-mask wearing during the first wave has given way to arguments between pro- and anti-maskers.

The government, so self-assured before, has also become embroiled in controversy. Health minister Roman Prymula (nicknamed ‘the Colonel’ due to his military past) was caught violating his own Covid restrictions on 22 October by standing within two metres of his driver without wearing a face mask following a mysterious meeting in a closed restaurant. Prime minister Andrej Babiš lost no time in describing the incident as an ‘absolute catastrophe’, confirming that if Prymula chose not to resign he would be sacked. After a farcical public war of words, Prymula was replaced by Jan Blatný, a leading doctor previously responsible for running two of the Czech Republic’s largest hospitals.

In Blatný’s first interview as health minister, he condemned the government’s response this autumn. It had hoped that a phased approach to restrictions would identify which exact measures have a positive effect, but it then abandoned this when case numbers grew rapidly in early October. It then entered a second national lockdown as an emergency fix.

This was a kneejerk response from a country that previously stood out as Europe’s lockdown posterboy. More importantly, perhaps, it suggests a fundamental problem with lockdown as a policy.

In the spring, lockdown was a pre-emptive step which stopped the virus before it had a chance to take root. But lockdown has now been implemented when all other plans had failed. Indeed, back in the summer and early autumn, senior figures insisted that keeping the economy open was all important, hence they encouraged people to travel within the Czech Republic and spend money. Much like the UK’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, this approach has now been recast as reckless.

Like the Operation Moonshot testing scheme now being rolled out in Liverpool in the UK, ways to avoid lockdown have been frantically explored by the Czech government. Before his removal from office, Prymula explored the idea of blanket antigen testing as a means of identifying and isolating every positive case in the country, in so doing eradicating the virus. The idea sank without a trace, although Slovakia put the same idea into effect at the weekend, testing 3.6million out of five million inhabitants, with 38,359 cases confirmed.

The search for other ways than lockdowns to tackle Covid made sense. As in the UK, economic and other health considerations made another pre-emptive lockdown unpopular, perhaps even impossible, this time around. And now, like the UK during both the first and second waves, the Czech government has embraced lockdown as a last resort with cases already out of control.

The Czech Republic was never going to do what it did in the spring, and lock down preemptively again. Repeating such an extreme measure would have required a reckless disregard for the economy and a lack of concern for the quality of people’s lives after months of restrictions. But the nature of the virus suggests that lockdowns have to be pre-emptive in order to work properly. [Actually, evidence suggests pre-emptive lockdowns also do not work. Consult Argentina for example.] It is all or nothing at all. This is the lockdown paradox: without the mad conviction needed to close a country before a virus even starts to spread, containing it through lockdown is like holding back the tide.

Source: Spiked

9 Comments
  1. cechas vodobenikov says

    on the fake liberal websites, “popular resistance”,” scheerpost”, these fascists advocate for stricter more prolonged covidian fascism

  2. Jimbo says

    The mask is capitulation to the nation of Islam. A man wearing one is even worse.

    1. Eileen Kuch says

      I fully agree, Jimbo, the test is bogus, and the mask is capitulation to the nation of Islam .. A man wearing one is even worse.

      1. Jimbo says

        As reported by Jon Rappaport, during a July 16, 2020, “This Week in
        Virology” podcast, Anthony Fauci made a point of saying that the
        industry-standard PCR COVID test is useless and misleading when the test
        is run using the threshold standards recommended by the FDA:

        Here, in techno-speak, is an excerpt from Fauci’s key quote (starting at about the 4-minute mark [1]):

        “…If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or
        more…the chances of it being replication-confident [aka accurate] are
        miniscule…you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive
        result] from a 37 threshold cycle…even 36…”

        Each “cycle” of the test is a quantum leap in amplification and magnification of the test specimen taken from the patient.

        Too many cycles, and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant.

        That’s called a false positive.

        What Fauci failed to say on the video is: the FDA, which authorizes
        the test for public use, recommends the test should be run up to 40
        cycles. Not 35.

        Therefore, all labs in the US that follow the FDA guideline are
        knowingly or unknowingly participating in fraud. Fraud on a monstrous
        level, because…

        Millions of Americans are being told they are infected with the virus on the basis of a false positive result, and…

        The total number of COVID cases in America—which is based on the test—is a gross falsity.

        The lockdowns and other restraining measures are based on these fraudulent case numbers.

        Let me back up and run that by you again. Fauci says the test is
        useless when it’s run at 35 cycles or higher. The FDA says run the test
        up to 40 cycles, in order to determine whether the virus is there. This
        is the crime in a nutshell.

        …All right, here are two chunks of evidence for what I’ve written
        above. First, we have a CDC quote on the FDA website, in a document
        titled [2]: “CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR
        Diagnostic Panel For Emergency Use Only.” See page 35. This document is
        marked, “Effective: 07/13/20.” That means, even though the virus is
        being referred to by its older name, the document is still relevant as
        of July 2020. “For Emergency Use Only” refers to the fact that the FDA
        has certified the PCR test under a traditional category called
        “Emergency Use Authorization.”

        FDA: “…a specimen is considered positive for 2019-nCoV [virus] if all
        2019-nCoV marker (N1, N2) cycle threshold growth curves cross the
        threshold line within 40.00 cycles (< 40.00 Ct).” Naturally, MANY testing labs reading this guideline would conclude, “Well, to see if the virus is there in a patient, we should run the test all the way to 40 cycles. That’s the official advice.” Then we have a New York Times article (August 29/updated September 17) headlined: “Your coronavirus test is positive. Maybe it shouldn’t be.” [3] Here are money quotes: “Most tests set the limit at 40 [cycles]. A few at 37.” “Set the limit” would usually mean, “We’re going to look all the way to 40 cycles, to see if the virus is there.” The Times: “This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients…” That’s the capper, the grand finale. Labs don’t or won’t reveal their collusion in this crime. We previously reported how these PCR tests were not only inaccurate — they weren’t even testing for the presence of the actual COVID-19 virus, which has never been isolated, according to CDC internal documents. But of course, the labs are making billions off these bogus PCR tests so they have zero incentive to blow the whistle on the patently absurd and pseudo-scientific results. And when someone gets a positive result, the media reports it as a “new infection,” but a positive result obviously doesn’t mean you have an active infection. Even IF COVID-19 exists — and that’s a big IF — just because you were to test positive for it doesn’t mean you have an active “infection” — the vast majority of people who carry the virus will NOT develop an “infection” and demonstrate actual symptoms. And yet every positive test is being treated as it’s an active infection — and the person infected is in an active disease state — which is demonstrably false in 99.9% of the cases. And since no one in the media is confronting Fauci on these words that came out of his mouth, which completely undermine the basis for the existence of the “pandemic”, we can safely assume that the media is complicit in the crime — and those who own and control the media want this deception to continue because ultimately they will be the ones benefiting most from the continuing charade.

      2. Jimbo says

        Thanks Eileen. People are like sheep, they could say anything and most people would do it. At least Rand Paul and his daddy have the nerve to stand up for us. The rest are traitors. As far as I am concerned they all must leave their offices and just go home. Even Fauci says the test is a joke. Its inventor Karry Mullis said it was not to be used.

  3. Jimbo says

    The test is Bogus.

  4. ke4ram says

    What can you say… The fraud of this fake disease just never ends. Governments control all the information. They pay off their medical establishment. Anyone that dies is marked Covid. How does anyone know different and how would one prove it?

    The doctors and hospitals are in it for the cash,,, care less about the patient. Money. Money. Money!

    Gov officials are in it for power and cash,,, Whitmer of Michigan is a prime example. Power, Power, Power!

    Small businesses are being destroyed to make everyone dependent on gov. They provide 70% employment. What business managed to survive bullshit 1 will now die in bullshit, the sequel.

    People, epecially boomers are kissing govs ass scared they might die begging for lockdowns,,, millennials and Xers want everything free. Biden and Harris promises it all by destroying the dollar in their new Magic Money Tree theory.

    The rest that actually see this bullshit for what it is,,, is waiting for Trump to fix it,,, while Trump is congratulating Moderna for its vaccine in an attempt to boost his ego above the stratosphere while the country is circling the toilet bowl.

    Media, playing kissy, kissy with the Commies are hoping to become the new Pravda. The New York Slimes loved Stalin,,, now love Schwab, Gates, Soros and ilk. Investigative Journalists are an extinct species.

    Government Agencies (Federal & State) are conspirators in the insurrection to eliminate the Constitution completely, the most offensive are the health “authorities” and “experts” selling this virus hoping for a place in the new order.

    We are all so f-ked!

    1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

      Small businesses are destroyed to allow for corporate monopolies… like Amazon… who OWN OUR “DEMOCRACY”. The enemy is not government as a concept. It is government owned by bat shit crazy free market nuts like Bezos and Gates and the owners of Pfizer. Aim higher to identify the real enemies.

      1. Eileen Kuch says

        Only, this nation’s not a Democracy, Saint Jimmy; it never was .. It’s been a Republic since 1787, when the Constitution was written.

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