Zelensky's Covid-19 Disaster
Unremitting official distraction from objective assessment
President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week in Zagreb that Ukraine is currently experiencing a *second wave* of Covid-19 infections and that the country’s borders would be opened for foreigners “as soon as the ascertainment rate of coronavirus disease in Ukraine improves.”
Zelensky said Ukraine did well during the *first wave* of the disease when new daily infections ranged from 100 to 300. The *first wave* ended mid April.
Since the end of January, Zelensky has successfully avoided criticism of how officials have handled Covid-19 spread. He has met the media on his own terms, in venues where he filibusters over hard questions. The President’s Office, meanwhile, has cultivated credulous foreign journo brownnosers and used them as conduits for inaccurate, self-serving success stories on mitigating the spread of the disease.
The Covid-19 situation is not improving in Ukraine and is unlikely to improve anytime in the near future.
Meanwhile, parliament on September 30 cancelled scheduled plenary sessions and will be meeting only one more time before November 1.
Prequel to the disaster
Zelensky told us not to worry on January 31.
Ze!Team did nothing to prepare for the pandemic in February and March.
There was no individual-level containment, which would have had minimal effect on the economy. Instead, Illia Yemets, a corrupt hack from the era of disgraced former President Viktor Yanukovych, was installed as Health Minister. He said the country’s limited medical resources shouldn’t be wasted on people over the age of 65.
Yemets was sacked after members of Ukraine’s jet set brought the virus back to Ukraine from European ski resorts. Germy priests co-mingled with hundreds of thousands of returning migrant workers and exacerbated the situation. All regions have since seen a steady increase in cases.
The idea that that restrictions imposed in March could be lifted after hospitals were re-equipped was abandoned. Ze!Team in April gave up on a policy of sufficient testing and contact tracing altogether, opting for a policy of harm reduction, the success of which will likely depend on the unpredictable zeal of the nation’s vertically-integrated 300,000+ police force to delouse infected establishments and their owners.