Lukashenka unveils number of COVID-19 patients and threatens to dismiss government
On April 7, the President of Belarus held a meeting to discuss the spread of COVID-2019 in Belarus.
According to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, 794 people with coronavirus have been hospitalized in the country as of today. Of them, 31 are connected to artificial lung ventilation system.
“There’s absolutely no catastrophe,” said the head of state.
Lukashenka instructed his staff to hold back “not an avalanche-like” growth of patients and ordered to “fight for each person, especially when it comes to the elderly. According to him, the health care system is still coping with it.
Calling on Belarusians to strengthen immunity, engage in sports and abandon bad habits, Lukashenka noted that the situation with the coronavirus had helped to shake up the health care system and identify “bottlenecks”.
“I’ll hold you responsible when this psychosis ends and when these diseases go away,” he warned the officials.
“Can’t we make a mask?”
The President of Belarus noted that the total mortality rate in the country has decreased by 4% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, while that of pneumonia – by 9%. A total of 254 people died from pneumonia and 13 from coronavirus, 18.5 thousand – from diseases of the circulatory system, almost 5 thousand – from cancer. 860 people died from external causes.
Lukashenka also demanded that the government solves problems with the availability of individual protective equipment.
“I’ve warned the Prime Minister and the government: if the responsible people report to me by the end of the week that something is missing in pharmacies, shops or hospitals, especially for the protection of doctors, the government will be dismissed. Others will work,” he said.
Lukashenka instructed the officials to solve problems with the availability of protective equipment in the coming days.
“Can’t we make a mask? It’s unacceptable to say that we have a deficit of them today,” he instructed.
The President called unacceptable that “a doctor without gloves, without a mask would examine patients in a polyclinic”.
“They should be at least minimally protected. So that doctors were not treated. A doctor should treat patients, but we have to treat doctors,” stressed Lukashenka.
In general, he instructed the staff to defeat the coronavirus “in style” and “to save people in a dignified way”.
