Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko: Belarus has never downplayed coronavirus

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MINSK, 7 August (BelTA) – Belarus has never denied that there is a coronavirus problem, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon, BelTA has learned.

“We have never denied that coronavirus existed. This is the way mass media has presented it. How can we deny what is really here," the Belarusian leader said.

He said that he supervised the operation of the healthcare system in the face of the pandemic. The country has chosen a path that was different to that of many other states. At the same time the country tried to prevent panic. “If you panic, you lose. The world was going into psychosis, the media was aggravating it by showing reports of excavators being used to dig graves, providing horrendous comments. People in Belarus have been watching it. Then an economic pandemic with oil prices followed and later a political one with the election,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

The president stressed that all the contacts of the COVID-19 patients were closely monitored in Belarus and an epidemiological investigation was conducted in every case. Such a system has been preserved in Belarus since the Soviet Union. “We have preserved the infectious disease hospitals, we have preserved specialists, education. We have taught such things in universities. There was a kind of ‘martial law’ here. You simply did not know about it,” stressed the president.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said that he did not panic when he had contracted the coronavirus. “That happened later. I was too busy to panic. I did not know that I had the virus. I had no time to even think about it,” he said.

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