Opinions & Interviews

Lukashenko defends COVID-19 response measures in Belarus

BREST, 22 June (BelTA) – If the country had stopped the economy and production as part of the coronavirus response measures, we would have never be able to restore them to the previous level, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he talked to the personnel of the 38th Brest Independent Guards Air Assault Brigade, BelTA has learned.

“If we had stopped, we would have never restored our economy. We understood that we had an export-oriented economy. We understood that we would cope with the situation, the organization of our state allows us to do it," the president said.

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that Belarus chose the pinpoint tactics of fighting coronavirus  and decided against imposing mass isolation requirements and stopping the production. Another reason was a well-developed healthcare system, and a wide network of infectious disease hospitals, which Belarus did not destroy, unlike some other countries. “We did not allow the healthcare system to collapse. It has withstood. The hospitals are returning to the normal mode of operation,” the president added.

According to the president, U.S. President Donald Trump earlier said that if they did not reopen the economy, more people may die from this than from the virus itself, and this prediction is beginning to prove true. Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that the majority of people in Belarus understand that the strategy the country chose to fight the virus was right.

“The economy is gradually recovering. We have certain reserves,” the president said. He explained that otherwise the niches that the Belarusian producers hold in foreign markets would simply have been occupied by others and it would have been impossible to restore the economy and production back to the previous level.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also spoke about how he looked into and monitored the performance of the healthcare system during the pandemic. “I need to understand what is going on. I have instructed General Ravkov [State Secretary of the Security Council Andrei Ravkov] to make up several units of our military infectious disease specialists and send them to those red zones to see how to treat (anything can happen) and report to me on how civilian doctors treat such diseases. I am grateful to those people (they were mostly men) who went into those red zones. They worked very well and told me about the treatment system and responsibility of our civilian doctors,” the president said.

He added that later the military who contracted the virus were mostly treated by those specialists.

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