The novel starring the number one in world tennis, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, deported from Australia, showed the world the price paid by a handful of global public figures who, for different reasons, have dismissed the efforts of the last two years to fight the covid-19 pandemic, in the midst of the worst health crisis that the modern world has experienced.
Just as Djokovic, 34, had a hard time abandoning his dream of going down in history with the record of winning his 21st Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, others have been politically ostracized and even their highly regarded positions. paid, for disdaining the pandemic crisis.
(You can also read: The threats of anti-vaccines to a patient who they accuse of being an actor).
While from the beginning of the pandemic some leaders were quick to take action, closing borders and reducing social contact to limit the transmission of the virus, others saw the coronavirus Like “a little flu”, they disdained the global measures and recommendations, putting the lives of millions of people at risk.
deny vaccinations
Novak Djokovic spent ten days in a detention center, before being deported for failing to comply with Australian immigration regulations, which do not allow people not vaccinated against covid-19 to enter the island country, one of which has maintained the lowest coronavirus figures for the draconian sanitary control measures.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke admitted the risk of Djokovic himself infecting Australians was “negligible” but said his “disregard” of health regulations against the covid-19 It was a bad example.
Local authorities were relentless in rejecting the claims of Novak Djokovic, who contracted covid-19 in December, to be exempted from the immigration rule of entering the country without being vaccinated.
It was of no use to him that a judge tried to block the deportation of the tennis player, by reinstating his visa and ordering his immediate release.
(You may be interested: Will the use of the mask continue in Colombia?).
The Immigration Minister struck back on Friday and canceled his visa for a second time under his discretionary powers, citing “reasons of health and public order”.
Boris Johnson partying
Another who has seen these days bear the weight of his leniency in the fight against covid-19 has been the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who could lose his position, due to revelations that several parties were held at 10 Downing Street, the seat of the same government.
The irreverent and charismatic 57-year-old Prime Minister is trying to avoid a vote of confidence in Parliament from his Conservative supporters, while an official report is expected this week from a special commissioner of the same administration on the parties in Downing Street and other seats of government.
If it is proven that Johnson violated the quarantine rules, it could force him to resign from his position.
Already the British Prime Minister had to apologize twice, first before the House of Commons and then before the sovereign herself Isabel II, and acknowledge that several parties were held that violated the rules imposed by their own government during the pandemic.
(Other reading: US will require vaccinations from travelers entering from Mexico or Canada.)
Perhaps the most lapidary was the revelation about one of those sprees, which occurred just as the United Kingdom was mourning the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, the sovereign’s husband, on April 17, 2021.
Johnson had been one of the first to dismiss the scope of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020, by endorsing the vision of herd immunity instead of taking sanitary control measures. He only changed his mind after he contracted covid-19 himself and had to be taken to an intensive care unit.
the fallen banker
Sir António Mota de Sousa Horta-Osório, 57, a British-Portuguese banker, had to give up his hefty multimillion-dollar salary as chairman of Credit Suisse after a series of scandals at the bank.
He broke several quarantine rules while traveling around Europe and attending the Euro 2020 final and the Wimbledon tennis tournament. This when he was the CEO of the Lloyds Banking Group, in which he had worked since 2011.
Trump: ‘Little Flu’
In the case of the United States, there are those who claim that the former president donald trump he lost re-election in part because of the way he handled the pandemic.
Trump assured several times that his country had everything under control and that everything would pass quickly, since the coronavirus was “just a flu.”
The president went so far as to say that the virus was a farce invented by the Democrats and that one day, out of nowhere, it would disappear.
(Also: ‘Gripalizing’ the covid: what the strategy consists of and what the experts say).
Trump claimed that the virus could be eradicated with the use of disinfectants and ultraviolet light, while blaming China, assuring that covid-19 was a strain that had escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
However, he only changed his speech in the face of the evidence, when USA It became the country with the most cases of contagion and deaths in the world.
czech singer
The world press echoed this week the case of a Czech singer who refused to be vaccinated and died after contracting covid.
Is about Hana Hork, 57, who died two days after revealing that he had tested positive for the disease.
(In context: Anti-vaccine singer dies after voluntarily contracting it)
Horka purposely got infected to get a recovery pass to enter certain venues in the Czech Republic, which maintains tight restrictions right at its worst.
the indian case
India is the third country in cases of covid infections and deaths, but its president, Narendra Modi, has seen his popularity hit by accusations that his government has not done enough to solve this crisis that has left a balance of almost half a million of deaths.
Despite the disastrous figures, they are not capable of reflecting all the horror that is being experienced there. Covid-19 patients are dying in hospitals, doctors cannot give them oxygen or any effective medicine.
Many Indians hold Modi de la Narendra Modi responsible for allowing public events to take place on several occasions, where few attendees wore masks. Modi also authorized, in the midst of the pandemic, between January and March 2021, that a religious festival be held in which millions of people participated.
In addition, the president of India is accused of preferring to send several million doses of vaccines to neighboring countries in early May 2021, when just 1.9 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people had the full course of the virus vaccine.
The same with Bolsonaro
In the Latin American case, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, faces lawsuits for allegedly aggravating the pandemic and using constitutional powers to disrupt the administrative work of the Ministry of Health in the development of clinical protocols, the dissemination of data, and the acquisition of vaccines.
Even Bolsonaro had a judicial setback this week, when a São Paulo judge blocked an action by the deputy for the government, Carla Zambelli (PSL-SP), who tried to suspend a state decree that imposed the compulsory vaccination against covid -19 to public servants.
In May 2020, the Brazilian ultra-conservative deputy vetoed the laws that required the use of masks in religious centers or those that had served to compensate health professionals.
(Also read: Plane canceled its flight and returned to the airport for a passenger without a mask).
On several occasions, Bolsonaro has mockingly referred to covid as a ‘little flu’, who has also interfered in the efforts of state governors to encourage social distancing, and in the same way has taken advantage of his power to impose decrees to allow many business could continue.
He has also used his presidential image to condition debates on the coronavirus crisis. Thus, it has promoted the false dilemma between economic ruin and the maintenance of social distance, and has always distorted what science says.
MARIA VICTORIA CRISTANCHO
To THE TIME – London
On twitter: @mavicristancho
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