Nearly everywhere, except for a few East-Asian countries that were caught by SARS in 2003, governments initially downplayed the threat of the new coronavirus, COVID-19. When the first reports about the virus emerged from China, many leaders reckoned it would stay there, despite of warnings from health experts to the contrary. President Donald Trump, thoughtful of his re-election campaign later this year, still refers to it as the “Chinese virus” and says he will conquer this foreign threat by Easter, after which we supposedly can safely go back to work, shop and dine as we were used to. We hope he is right, of course, but chances are he may not be.
Also, in Emerging Markets some leaders are still in denial. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, said the coronavirus was merely a “sniffle” and a hoax by hostile news media. On March 15th, he was making selfies and high-fiving with far-right fans who were demonstrating against Congress in his support in the country’s capital, Brasilia. This despite the fact that some of his cabinet ministers tested positively for the virus. Bolsonaro’s inept response to the health crisis triggered a widespread Panelaço (where protesters bang pots and pans with wooden spoons, a popular way of expressing discontent in South America) as Brazilians increasingly get frustrated with his slipshod leadership.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (affectionately known as AMLO), president of Mexico, is another denialist. On March 14th, the leftist populist tweeted a video of himself hugging supporters (fortunately, he says he possesses two amulets that will protect him against the coronavirus and other ills). Then, he suggested that fellow Mexicans should read Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, to calm down. Maybe he was inspired by Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Ortega’s government organized a march for Sandinista sympathizers, called “Love in the Time of COVID-19”. Mysteriously, the 75-year old tyrant has not been seen for weeks, which prompted responsible citizens to tweet messages to “be like Ortega”, asking people to stay at home.
Ignorance (or stupidity) is not only found in Latin America. Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi claimed that no one in her country had contracted the disease, a tall feat given that the Land of the Golden Pagoda is bordering China (measuring more than 2,000 km!). Apparently, Burmese lifestyle and diet were responsible for this, but reality caught up with fantasy when on March 23rd the government was forced to report its first victims. Most likely, more people already had died from the coronavirus as reports of a mysterious disease had circulated on internet for some weeks. But then, denial is in the genes of Myanmar’s leaders: genocide of Rohingya Muslims never happened, for example. Tightly controlled Turkmenistan has sealed off its capital, Ashgabat, but there is no word of COVID-19. The government claims that use of herbs could curb the disease, but this may not be a very reassuring message in a country that still experiences occasional outbreaks of plague (spread by gerbils).
In Africa denial is less of an issue, simply because epidemic outbreaks are more common there (think of Ebola). Unfortunately, this continent is least prepared to fight the virus because resources are extremely scarce. In Central & Eastern Europe the crises is used to concentrate power. Hungary, for example, uses the crisis to grant sweeping powers to the government without much restrictions, if any. In Belarus, president Alexander Lukashenko advises citizens to go to the sauna, down some vodka and get back to work. It is by now the only country that has not taken any measures against the coronavirus.
A sketch from “Yes, Minister” provides a predictable response from governments to explain away their incompetence.
Very funny, if it were not that serious…
