Trollheart

Country: Ireland
Continent: None; island, but politically part of Europe
Governing Party:++ Coalition of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and various independents (hey, it’s Ireland, y’know?)
Political affiliation: God knows! Left I guess. Maybe
Main crisis leaders:++ Leo Varadkar and then Michael Martin (Taoiseach) Simon Harris and then Stephen Donnelly (Minister for Health) Dr. Tony Holohan (CMO)
Status of country: Republic
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 97
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 1
Cases (at time of writing):** 1,615,426
Deaths (at time of writing): 7,573
Date of first lockdown: March 12
Duration: 67 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 3
Reaction level+++: 60
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 81%
Score:*** 80

And so we come to my home country. No vanity involved, I do assure you: I’m trying, as I said, to process these chronologically, in the order they occurred, and based on the date of the first official lockdowns. I seem to have pre-empted Spain a little, by about two days, but let’s not quarrel about that. To show (as if you care) that I’m not trying to push Ireland to the front, I concentrated on Denmark before this, as they had their first lockdown on the same day as Ireland. But now here we are, and while as usual I’ll be referring to Wiki for details, data and confirmation of figures and dates, this I can write almost freehand, as I literally lived through it.

Like most people, I assume, I watched the stories of the spread of what was known at the time as the Coronavirus with little real worry (and, it has to be said, little sympathy either), never dreaming it would visit our shores. But of course it did, and Covid arrived in Ireland at the end of February. Our government at the time had already set up the NPHET - the National Public Health Emergency Team, an acronym we would all become exhaustingly familiar with over the next two years - to monitor the progress of the virus before it ever reached Ireland, or even Europe, so you might say we were well prepared, but of course we were not. Nobody knew what we were facing, and this wasn’t because other countries wouldn’t share their knowledge, it was just that everyone was in the same boat. We were learning as we went along, adjusting and adapting to a new virus, a whole new way of thinking and endeavouring to battle an opponent we had never even heard of before, never mind fought.


Like most countries in Europe, our point of contact for the first cases was Italy, with one case being detected over the border in Northern Ireland as a woman returned from Northern Italy, and then one in our own Republic, same thing, except this victim was male. This was February 27 and 29 respectively, taking us into March with one case in the Republic of Ireland. Of course, it wouldn’t remain that way for long, and in fact we chalked up our first death eleven days into the new month. Like many, indeed most fatalities linked to Covid in the early days, this was an old person, who had died at a hospital. Lockdowns swiftly followed.

At the time, our taoiseach (pronounced tee-shock, and basically our Prime Minister, the head of the government, other than our President, itself largely a figurehead) at the time, Leo Varadkar, who would later become I think the only leader of the country to take a lower level job in the government - he’s now the tanaiste (tawn-ish-ta, second-in-command) ordered first the closure of all schools, colleges and childcare facilities on March 12, followed by all pubs and bars the next day. By March 27 we were instructed to “remain at home” with strict limits on where we could go (no more than 2 km from our home, for exercise or vital shopping, doctor’s appointments, that kind of thing), the order being shown on the TV: “Fan abhaile” (fon a-wall-ya) - Stay at home. This first lockdown would be our longest, and would instil the most fear into people, as we had never in our lifetimes experienced anything like this at all, and everyone was on edge.

As case numbers - and deaths - climbed steadily, and medical advice changed on almost a weekly basis, the hospitals began to creak at the seams. No country’s hospital system had ever been designed to take this sort of pressure, and in addition to Covid patients it must also be remembered that people were getting sick and hurt for other reasons, as they always have done: car accidents, heart attacks, domestic accidents, trips and falls, shortness of breath - all the usual stuff emergency departments deal with on a daily basis, but now they had also to contend with hundreds or more of patients who needed urgent isolation and accommodation in the ICUs, and beds, never at a premium in Irish hospitals, were more scarce than ever. In addition, people feared coming to hospital, worried they would catch Covid, doctors and nurses feared they would bring it in (and maybe go back and transmit it around) and the government advised all sick people to stay away from hospitals altogether. If you thought you were coming down with the virus, they said, ring - do NOT visit! - your GP and do NOT attend the Emergency Room.

For my part, I was forced to do my shopping early in the morning. Having witnessed with shock the huge queues of people waiting to get into Tesco (and once in, finding almost everything out of stock anyway) I had to take advantage of the special shopping hours set up for the elderly, the vulnerable and carers, which meant being at the doors originally at 7am, later changed to 8. This period only ran up to 9am though, so you had to get in and out quickly, and back safely home. We had of course been advised to wear face masks and to socially distance, and to wash our hands thoroughly, which naturally I did. I’ve described elsewhere the eerie feeling of quiet on the deserted roads, the fear of going out, even for a short while, and the way the lockdowns, especially the first one, impacted on us, so I won’t go into that again. Suffice to say that, like everyone, we were scared and nobody had any idea where this was going or how it was going to end.

One of our most important events, and one of the biggest tourist attractions Ireland can offer, the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, was cancelled amid fears it would become what was later termed as a “super-spreader” event, and we would be responsible not only for increasing the number of cases - and probably deaths too - in Ireland, but also for others taking the virus back to their own countries and propagating it there. So, amid general disappointment but, it must be said, agreement and understanding, the event was cancelled. Sporting events soon followed, as well as the likes of the Rose of Tralee Festival and the All-Ireland Championships, and school examinations such as the Leaving Certificate were postponed.

But in a country so famed for its welcome, and so religious, two other aspects of Covid hit harder than most. The first was the idea that nobody should or could shake hands or hug any more, as this was known to be a way to pass on, or contract, the virus. Even for me, it became hard not to give in to second nature and extend the hand or reach for the shoulders of loved ones. Irish people have always been a very “touchy-feely” people, if you like, and we love contact, so to suddenly have to cut that off was very hard. But necessary. I’m not entirely certain many in Ireland adopted the rather silly “elbow bump” that places like the UK did; we just kind of touched without touching. Saying goodnight, I would make the motion of kissing Karen’s forehead but not touch it, and so on.

More to the point for Ireland was the closure of churches. Nobody needs to be told how strong and vital a part religion plays in Ireland - the whole Troubles period was based, after all, on differences between Protestant and Catholic, and we here in the Republic have always been a Catholic country, well over a thousand years back, if not more, maybe nearly two. So when churches were closed people were worried and concerned. The clergy, to their credit, saw the sense of it, unlike, as we will see later, certain religious figures across the Atlantic, and did what they could to help their parishioners, holding “virtual masses”, transmitting over radio, absolving Catholics from their need or duty (perceived I imagine, as nobody is required) to attend mass and doing all they could to minister to the needs of the soul without being physically present.

Of course, this raised another issue. Most priests in Ireland are quite old, which immediately placed them in the “vulnerable” bracket, and even if they weren’t, most of their parishioners were, so you had the sort of “double whammy” of an old priest not being able to attend an old parishioner, lest one (or both) give the other the virus. For old people this of course made things even worse. One thing Irish people - older ones certainly - could always rely on was a visit from the local priest, some of them even receiving Holy Communion at their home, as did my aunt, when she was too old and infirm to make it to the church. That stopped, of course, as such visits were no longer safe, nor permitted. I remember phoning our priest when Karen was depressed and wanted to talk to him, and he sheepishly apologising; he was “cocooning” himself and could not attend. Cocooning was the phrase used to refer to older or more vulnerable people self-isolating, not because they had the virus, but in case they got it. A sort of protective custody by themselves.

Funerals were another thing. As the dead piled up, it became impossible to allow people to attend funerals, at least in the kind of numbers you would normally expect. With social distancing important, and the virus basically airborne and carried by droplets (and how many of them in a tear, and where do people cry the most?) the idea of a large crowd of people mourning the deceased - and, like as not, crowding into a pub or house afterwards - could not be condoned, and so sadly many of the dead went to their rest attended only by a priest and a few select family members. Sad times. Certain groups - travellers, mostly (knackers/pikies/gypsies/whatever you’re having yourself) openly flouted the restrictions, having their usual huge gatherings, to the extent that the Gardai (police) had to break some up, and even stop a planned wedding going ahead in County Wexford. Travellers have always considered themselves apart from the law, living on the fringes of society, so I suppose they either thought the law didn’t apply to them or wanted to give the finger to the authorities, but both funerals surely acted as super-spreaders, as would the wedding, had it gone ahead.

Hospitals basically closed their doors to visitors. Even those who were sick and possibly dying could not be visited, as the hospitals had by now been forced to implement a strict and zero-tolerance “no visitors” policy, as again related by me elsewhere in respect of Karen’s visit. This obviously put additional pressure on hospital staff, as they tried to comfort dying patients and also fielded angry calls from their loved ones. A lot of medical staff naturally got infected and the staffing levels went down as nurses, doctors and other staff had to self-isolate, leaving their colleagues trying to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile the ICUs were still filling up, and like most other countries we were running low on respirators and beds. PPE gear was also in short supply, and until the vaccine arrived it must have been a daily source of fear to have to go into work and face all those sick people. You have to just stand in awe of people who did this, day in, day out, with little to no concern for their own health.

Ireland may not have been alone in this, but it’s the only country I know of so far which instigated a five-level status in the time of Covid, with level 1 being basically all is well and level 5 meaning a full lockdown. Over the course of the pandemic this was applied separately and at different levels to different counties, as case numbers spiked there. In particular, Offaly, Laois and Kildare would all find themselves at a higher level than the rest of the country until their case numbers slowed. At best, I suppose this could be compared to the way certain states in the USA were under lockdown while others threw caution to the wind. Not really though. I think they did something similar in the UK, which we’ll check out in due course.

Oh, and don’t we Irish just love a good pilgrimage! When you’re getting too pleased with yourself, or you just need a good soul scourging, a barefoot walk over hard rock up Croagh Patrick was just the thing to bring you back down to earth (not, hopefully, literally!) and knock some of that heathen pride out of ya! But not this year, me auld segoshas! This year the event was cancelled; I mean, it made sense. Who wants to suddenly start feeling peaky (sorry) up the side of a bloody mountain in their bare feet, and from where would the rescue come, with the damn country on lockdown too? Hey, maybe God would understand and forgive you just this once, yeah?

But even more than ripping our soles (for the benefit of our souls) to shreds on stabby rocks in the cold morning air, we Irish love our pint, and if anything was going to push us to riot it was the closure of our beloved pubs. It didn’t. Irish people seldom riot. Though to be fair, that’s usually because we’re in the pubs, and this was one time we couldn’t be. In the pubs, that is. But if there was one complaint I heard more during the lockdown and rolled my eyes at, it was when were the fucking pubs going to be open again? To be fair, it was hard on the publicans, who lost money hand over fist, so much so that some never reopened, and the government did not help, dangling the hope of reopening and then changing their mind (not their fault; they were being guided by the NPHET), engendering frustration, anger and despair in the hearts of the hard-pressed vintners. Restaurants were the same; closed with no way to pay staff and no idea when they’d be opening again, times were hard.

Times were indeed hard, and to their credit the government instigated the hilariously-named PUP, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, to be paid to anyone who was out of work due to Covid restrictions. Naturally, there were some who took advantage of this, claiming the payment while working, or having been on the dole, and so on, but overall the instances were not that high. There was also a corresponding payment to employers, to help get them over the hump and also to encourage them to have as many as possible of their staff working from home. When pubs were eventually allowed to reopen it was under strict guidelines, not all of which were adhered to by every establishment, and the Gardai did close down many, the owners of which were fined. Social distancing at houses, though mandated/advised, proved impossible to enforce, as Gardai had not the power (nor, I think, did they want it) to enter homes to confirm such guidelines were being followed, with the result that many house parties took place which featured no form of restriction at all. I imagine many new cases, and, sadly but inevitably, deaths arose from this irresponsible behaviour.

Ireland would go through two more lockdowns, both of which would be largely ignored, with the vaccine available, the rollout of which would be praised as the best in the world, which is certainly something. Like other countries, there was some hesitancy and some outright opposition to vaccines, and some right wing groups even organised demonstrations against the government and, um, Covid. There was sporadic violence, but nothing like rioting, looting or clashes with the police. Even so, thankfully those days are now long behind us. Nevertheless, Ireland is perhaps an example or cautionary tale of getting too complacent; as we basically shrugged at Covid, and largely still do, case numbers are growing again, though with the vaccines the amount of deaths had seriously dropped, one reason I suppose why most people don’t take the virus too seriously now, and consider it something that happened, back then.

It was done with, in the past.
But of course it isn't.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Country: Netherlands
Continent: Europe (Western)
Governing Party:++ People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)
Political affiliation: Left
Main crisis leaders:++ Jaap Van Dissel (Outbreak Management Team), Mark Butte (Prime Minister)
Status of country: Kingdom
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 1,135 (or possibly as high as 6,000)
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 1
Cases (at time of writing):** 8,264,406
Deaths (at time of writing): 22,496
Date of first lockdown: March 15
Duration: 22 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 3
Reaction level+++: 50
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 69%
Score:*** 40

You would think a relatively forward-looking, progressive country as the Netherlands would have had an equally progressive reaction to the virus and lockdowns, wouldn’t you? Yeah. Read on. Two major blunders characterise Netherlands’ initial response to the virus. The first was that Schiphol Airport, one of the busiest in Europe, took no special precautions, citing the lack of direct flights from there to Wuhan, but somehow forgetting about connecting flights, and the second was the contention of their version of the CDC, RIVM, that the virus was “not highly contagious” and therefore posed little risk. Where they came to this conclusion is beyond me, but it certainly set the scene for the kind of deaths the Netherlands would see, probably the most since World War II. In this atmosphere of unconcern, people were allowed to head to Italy at the end of February for skiing holidays, so I expect I’ll find as I read on that many of the cases originated from there.

Four days later, February 26, the government, probably in the light of Italy’s Own escalating problems with the virus, thought better of it and advised - but did not prevent - people against going to the affected areas of Italy. The next day the Netherlands had its first case, and yes, as expected, it was a present from Italy. Numbers quickly rose, standing at 82 by March 5, more than double the previous day. The next day the Netherlands registered its first death, and cases were soon quadrupled. On March 13 flights began to be suspended to countries already on other no-fly lists, the likes of China, Iran, South Korea and, oh yeah, Italy. Although the statistics show that the Netherlands began their first lockdown two days later, I read that the Prime Minister was not doing this, and was instead trusting in herd immunity. Universities were closed but schools remained open (wait, what?) while cafes and restaurants, night clubs and, um, sex clubs had to close. Schools were eventually included, as well as childcare centres.

Hold on here, let’s back up a little. The no-fly order still allowed aircraft coming from the virus hot-spots to land if they had taken off before 18:00, when the announcement was made? How was that supposed to work? Anyone who had left Italy, Iran etc before 6pm was magically not infected, but anyone after that was? How ludicrous! About as crazy as waiting for enough people to get sick and die that immunity would be achieved. By the end of the month the country’s caseload had climbed to 10,000, one month after that the figure had tripled and the death total was at just over 3,500. The first of many demonstrations took place in June, though this one was not against Covid restrictions or vaccines, but was in support of those decrying the senseless death of American George Floyd. Nonetheless, over 5,000 people gathered with little consideration given to social distancing, a possible super-spreader event.

It would not be the last.

As I intimated in the introduction, the Netherlands was one of the countries in Europe where the harshest backlash erupted against the restrictions imposed by the government in an attempt to control the spread of Covid-19. The main bone of contention seemed to be the imposition of a curfew, from mid-January, prohibiting the presence of the public on the streets after 9pm. Violent protests broke out against this on January 21 in Eindhoven and Amsterdam, and a Covid-19 testing site was even set on fire. You have to wonder about the mentality of these people: how dare you try to ensure we’re safe? Take that! Burn, you bastard! The demonstrations - which quickly descended into rioting and looting - were helped along by right-wing and anti-lockdown groups and conspiracy theorists, with the aid of our good friend social media, and then of course the police responded, and all hell broke loose. Property was damaged, people injured, arrests made, special January sales deals were worked out without the troubling detail of money changing hands.

And the riots continued for the next several days, spilling over into other cities and districts as the whole anti-lockdown/anti-curfew/anti-everything movement grew and spread like the very virus its opponents were trying to protect them from. It should in fairness though be pointed out that not everyone took part in or supported these actions; in certain towns, groups of individuals, like in one, a sports team, came out to defend their city or towns and turn back the rioters, most of whom did not even come from there.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Country: Iran
Continent: Asia
Governing Party:++ None, so far as I can see: all ministers serve under the Supreme Leader and the President
Political affiliation: I guess you’d say right wing?
Main crisis leaders:++ Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader), Ebrahim Raisi (President), Mohammad Mokhber (Vice President)
Status of country: Islamist Theocracy
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 9,000 or 100,000
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 34 or 210
Cases (at time of writing):** 7,251,429
Deaths (at time of writing): 141,44 or 270,898 depending on source
Date of first lockdown: March 14
Duration: 37 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 2
Reaction level+++: 60
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 69%
Score:*** 25

How do you think the virus got on in an Islamist state? Yeah, if you want real, hardline, uncompromising, stuck-in-the-eighteenth-century good old blood and guts Islamic fundamentalist fire, Iran is the place to go. As I note above, the system of government is hard for me to work out, given only the most cursory look at how it works, but I don’t think there are any political parties and even the President is very much subservient to the Supreme Leader, who basically seems to rule more or less like an absolute monarch. His word is law, and even presidents can be dismissed or - presumably - imprisoned or maybe even executed on his orders.

So it will come as a shock to absolutely nobody that Iran followed the “Chinese approach” when it came to outbreaks in its country, which is to say, they told everyone who knew about it to keep it buttoned unless they fancied losing various important parts of their anatomy. Iran has never been that forthcoming anyway (remember the nuclear facilities back in the 2000s?) and tends to forcibly isolate itself from the west, and from most of the rest of the world too, so they were hardly going to be sharing information were they? As a result, early reports of cases there are hard to verify, but it looks like some medical professionals, worried about the coming crisis and braver than most, spoke to a reporter for the west on condition of anonymity, being quite attached to all their bodily parts. From their data it seems the first case in Iran may have been as early as December of 2019, almost just as the Chinese were realising they had a big problem on their hands. Not only were they told to shut up, but in a move so massively arrogant as to all but defy logic, they were told not to wear protective gear, for fear of causing a panic if anyone saw them. Oh yeah, that’s cool: risk your life for the State. If you die, the Prophet will be pleased, but he may ask you to wear a mask before you’re admitted into Paradise. As for those seventy-two virgins, well, you just remember the social distancing rule, buddy, all right? Last thing we need up here is a fucking outbreak of Covid-19!

I have to admit, I’m staggered. I mean, I knew the Americans were crazy (some of them anyway) and would risk their lives and those of others to apparently prove a point, or be the alpha dog, but though mask mandates were only ordered in a few states, I feel sure that even in the reddest of the red states the doctors were not discouraged from wearing masks and PPE, much less forbidden to do so. On February 19 - not quite sure why, but they must have been forced into it - the government announced the first death. This surely came as a surprise, as up to then the public had been kept in the dark about Covid, and with presumably little or no access to western media, would likely have known nothing about the plague that was already in their country wreaking havoc. As one of the doctors reportedly said, “We reported the first death before we reported the first case.” Surely a unique situation.

Showing the difference between official case/death counts and actual ones, a graphic on Wiki shows that on February 19 two deaths were reported, but the anonymous doctors barked bitterly to the reporter that there were already so many dead that a bulldozer had to be hired by a local cemetery in order to bury them. The airline controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mahan Air, stubbornly continued flying into China, indeed into Wuhan, long after other countries had stopped services to the Asian continent. As cases, and deaths, spiralled out of control, the Revolutionary Guard were detailed to visit hospitals and seize death counts before they could be released to the media. Iran would become a focus of the virus, but would do its best to remain the tightest-lipped and least cooperative of all countries in reporting its progress.

It was of course, as it ever has been, all about control. If the people, who were supposed to look to the Supreme Leader as a kind of god figure (not really, but the representative of the Prophet on Earth, so maybe a far more powerful and active Pope?) realised that there was something Khamenei had lost control over, his power might come into question, and that would never do. Can’t wait to see how North Korea approached this! They think their guy IS a god! Anyway, back in Iran the idea of Covid being used as a tool of suppression, a sort of Covid conspiracy theory before there were Covid conspiracy theories, was spread around, as the government blamed the USA for over-hyping the virus in order to, get this, disrupt Iran’s elections! Oh yeah. America was already battling its own president’s refusal to even acknowledge the existence of Covid-19, but had time to sneakily interfere in Iran’s internal politics! Right.

The regime also vowed to take action against anyone who tried to find out, tell or otherwise fuck with the truth. Iran didn’t need the truth. Iran couldn’t handle the truth. No truth handler, it! Bah! I deride its truth-handling abilities, and so on. In fact, it could handle it, it just didn’t want to, or to be more accurate, it didn’t want it getting out. So the usual heavy-handedness went on while the virus, unconcerned about Allah or Mohammed or Ali fucking Khamenei, went about its business. Look, I know, and you know that the virus is not sentient, so this is just for artistic purposes, but Covid must have considered an extended stay in Iran. So nice: the people ignore you, there are no precautions at all, you can kill at will - why would you want to leave?

And it didn’t. Iran would become another of the huge hot-spots where cases, and deaths, would absolutely go through the roof. So much, then, for Allah’s divine protection.
As is usually the case though, one rule for them and one for us. The parliamentary session held on February 29 required all members to submit to body temperature readings (the closest they would allow to Covid testing I guess) and when three members were found to be in the range which would indicate a positive test they were asked not to attend. Fuck you, all three said, and went anyway. How Trumpian of you, guys. By March they had at least admitted publicly to the outbreak, and a committee was set up to tackle it. Old enmities and rivalries surfaced when Iran (having previously called them a “tool of the western hegemony”) asked the IMF for money to help them combat the spread of the disease, and Trump said “I’ll be buggered by a Democrat before I let those filthy muslim bastards have any of our money!” Or words to that effect, possibly those exact words, who knows? Basically, the US said no, so the IMF spread its hands and said, sorry guys. No cash for you. No doubt muttering about capitalist infidels and pulling out those plans for an attack on a US embassy somewhere, the Supreme Leader fumed but could do nothing. In fairness, had this somehow been reversed, do you think old Ali would have helped out brother Donald? As if.

With the news now out in the open, and terrible retribution and punishment no longer on the tabel (well, not from the government anyway; the virus was about to hand out its own terrible form of poetic justice) one of the premier colleges in Iran published a study which gave three, more or less equally bleak, scenarios: if people cooperated with health guidelines, the Republic could expect to see in the region of 12,000 deaths before this thing blew itself out. If there was a more moderate response, the deaths would climb to 110,000, and if nobody cooperated the death toll would be in excess of three million. That of course did not stop Iran screaming about western influences, and the doctors from Medecins Sans Frontieres were kicked out, accused of being spies. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face!

Trump madness reached into Iran, as over 700 people died as a result of drinking Methanol, believing, somehow, that it was protection against the virus. Might as well have been drinking bleach. Oh. Wait. Never mind. Not at all to anyone’s surprise, at least outside of Iran, many prominent politicians and public figures, including those in the Health Ministry, were infected and quite a few died. I’m not going to go writing all their long bloody names here, but suffice to say Iran’s first ambassador to the Vatican found himself unexpectedly closer to Allah than he had intended, a member of the Supreme Leader’s Expediency Council shuffled off too, as did a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, a former ayatollah and a film director. A whole lot more got sick. Typically, Iran blamed the USA in a conspiracy whereby the “Great Satan” had engineered the virus, or a version of it, to specifically target Iranians. Sounds familiar, don’t it? And where the USA is, can Israel be far behind? Natch, the Jews got pulled into the conspiracy, another one without of course a shred of proof.

Crackdowns continued. Anyone who was seen to be promoting or disseminating “false” information (ie, true) was arrested and charged, and eventually in a Hitlerian move, all newspapers were shut down. To date, Iran is said to have arrested over 3,500 people on charges of, well, whatever they want to charge them with I guess. Probably sedition, or spreading information deemed to be harmful to the regime, or god knows what. Iranians were not allowed take part in vaccine testing by “foreign” companies (I doubt they had their own vaccine developed, as surely Allah wanted them to die, so to oppose his will… you know how it goes). Prisoners were released - up to 70,000 - and others didn’t wait, breaking out or rioting - and then breaking out - as chaos erupted across the state as it headed for its first lockdown, despite the assurances given only weeks before that there would be none.

Unlike western democracies - and even Saudi Arabia - where pandemic payments were made available to the public, in Iran these were seen as loans, and to be repaid with four percent interest. Nice. A phrase that really echoes in just about any country rang true here too: with the lifting of restrictions, the number of new cases rose. It’s staggering to me how people just did not get it. When we do France, I’ll be remarking on how Parisians, released from lockdown, immediately - and I mean immediately - ran out into the streets and mingled with not a care for social distancing, masks or any other precautions. Children being let out of school, with about as much sense of responsibility. And of course, very quickly cases spiked again. But it happened everywhere, especially here. You can of course understand people’s frustration and the need to get back to normal, but you know, the virus don’t care about normal, and it was just waiting to inflict further death and illness once restrictions allowed it to get in range of people again. And they helped.

Although Iran made Remdesivir locally, this is not a vaccine but a treatment, and they were eventually constrained to bow to the inevitable and import vaccines from the USA, despite opposition by the friendly old Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who probably feared the Great Satan was trying to turn all Iranians into Christians or something. Given the lack of any sort of precaution, lockdown or even information about the virus up to four months after the first case may have been detected there, Iran became another Italy or Spain, spreading the tentacles of Covid far and wide. Cases resulted from contact with Iran in places as far apart as Canada, Norway, New Zealand, Qatar and even Thailand. Spread the love, that’s what I say! I’m sure Mohammed would have approved.

Nevertheless, the EU provided 20 million Euro to Iran to help them combat the outbreak - a long long way from the five billion it wanted from the IMF, but I guess something is better than nothing - and various aid agencies sent workers and supplies to the stricken state. Trump grinned he would be willing to help “if they asked”. He’d probably like that request on bended knee, the Supreme Leader kissing a Bible. His sanctions against the country for their nuclear ambitions had of course made it doubly difficult for efforts to combat the virus to work, but Trump just grinned while one of his lobby buddies snarled that no aid of any kind should be allowed get through to Iran, effectively I guess making the - completely ludicrous - case that they should all be left to die.

Speaking of death - and with the Coronavirus, when are we not? - many accusations were levelled at the Iranian government that they underreported cases and especially deaths (quelle surprise, huh?) with some sources claiming the figures could be as much as five times higher than were officially reported. One source (possibly the reporter that spoke to the doctors at the beginning of the pandemic, referred to above, or someone who used his data) claimed that when the government reported 34 deaths on February 28 there had been in fact 210, while cases of 9,000 just before lockdown were widely believed to be more in the 100,000 range. Even the First Deputy Minister of the Parliament agreed that the figures released were “not real”. Leaked records from the Iranian government, obtained by the BBC in March, showed that cases and deaths were being underreported by a factor of three-to-one, in other words three times as many were being infected/dying as were being admitted to officially. Satellite images of huge freshly-dug mass graves backed up the doctors’ contention that far more were dying initially than had been reported, and that more were expected to die.

One opposition group, now in exile and dedicated to the overthrow of the current government (therefore I guess what the Supreme Leader referred to as “counter-revolutionaries”), estimated the death toll to be as high as TWENTY times that reported. Needless to say, the official position was to deny any allegations or accusations of suppressing of numbers of cases and deaths by the government of Iran. In July of 2020 the US Department of State accused Iranian state officials of embezzling money from the fund of over one billion Euro, meant to combat the outbreak, and of hoarding masks, PPE and other medical supplies for sale on the black market.

Clearly, the virus is still slicing its way through the populace; as recently as February of this year (2022) a quarter of the Iranian parliament have contracted the Omicron strain, and death figures continue to mount, though what the true picture is I guess we will never know for sure.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Country: Germany
Continent: Europe
Governing Party:++ Christian Democratic Union
Political affiliation: Centre Left?
Main crisis leaders:++ Angela Merkel (Chancellor), Jens Spahn (Minister of Health), Horst Seehofer (Minister of the Interior)
Status of country: Republic
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 1200+
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 2
Cases (at time of writing):** 29,308,100 (yeah: just shy of thirty MILLION!)
Deaths (at time of writing): 142,139
Date of first lockdown: March 16
Duration: 76 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 2
Reaction level+++: 50
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 76%
Score:*** 20

Oh here we go. America could have kicked the virus’s arse, had there been someone competent in charge, yes? If the US had had a man - or woman - in the White House who actually listened to the science and didn’t try to pretend the virus didn’t exist, they would be in a far different and likely better place than they are today. So Germany, Europe’s powerhouse leader and pretty much the equivalent of the US on the continent, should have been leading the field, driving lockdowns, vaccine production, protecting its citizens, yes? Should have been a breeze to them. But wait! What’s that I see? Almost thirty million cases? How did that happen? Look! Germany even had the Infection Protection Act, which gave the country’s government wide-ranging powers to tackle a virus outbreak. This should have been a slam dunk. What went wrong?

Well…

Germany’s first recorded case seems to have come on February 25, and who would like to guess where the gentleman had just spent his holidays? A day later, two people related to him also came down with the virus, as did others who had recently returned from Italy. Okay, hold on: this article is doing its cases by state, so I have to correct that. That guy on Feb 25 was not the first, just the first in that state. Pays to read ahead, Trollheart you dummy! Right, let’s scan, people. Okay, so, to redress that error: the first case was actually in January, in Bavaria, and is interesting. Despite my snide comment above, this man did not visit Italy; China was his undoing, but he had not been there. His colleague had, but she had caught the virus from her parents, whom she had met in Shanghai, and who had come from the very epicentre, ground zero, Wuhan.

Right, it’s too confusing to try to do a timeline for the number of cases, with all these states treated separately, so let’s leave that for now. There were certainly in the region of at least 100 by the end of February, that much I have been able to add up, but then, I don’t know if that article is only taking representative states and maybe there are others which aren’t reported on, but which had cases. It seems though that Germany, like its neighbour the Netherlands, initially shrugged at Covid-19 and did not believe it to be a threat; no travel restrictions were considered or implemented in January. I guess the people didn’t have the same sort of faith in their government, and by the close of January there wasn’t a mask to be got in Germany. Again, pretty amazingly, the main concern of the government as January gave way to February was the possible stigmatisation of those who had been infected, that they might be excluded from society. I mean, come on! There’s taking liberal socialism too far, isn’t there?

Two weeks in and Germany was indeed emulating its huge corpulent brother across the great ocean, and dismissing the pandemic; they voted against the restriction of travel to or from China, believing it xenophobic. Ah, those Germans! How easily they forget. Sorry. The madness continued. With not a mask to be bought for love or money in Germany, they decided to export over 8 tons of PPE to… China. This was in fact in addition to a previous consignment of 5 tons already sent. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

“Why can’t we buy masks, gloves and shields, sir?”
“Oh, we sent them all to China.”
“But… but didn’t they start this whole thing?”
“Well yes, but we Germans don’t need that sort of stuff. Coronavirus isn’t contagious. We’ll be fine.”

Gott in Himmel! Incredibly, by March, when many other countries were considering lockdowns, Germany persisted in keeping its borders open, running social and sporting events, keeping people at work and refused to limit flights, describing such action as “inappropriate”. Just to add to the rampant stupidity or blindness, they sent another few ton of medical supplies out of the country, this time bound for Iran. Where, as we saw in the previous post, they were most likely taken by government officials and sold on the black market or hoarded for their own personal use. Nice one, Angela! I’m reminded of the ending of the Fawlty Towers episode “The Germans,” where, having witnessed the chaos in Fawlty Towers, a bewildered German looks to the camera and delivers the final line: “How did they ever win?” Well, I’m now thinking how did these people ever secure all of Western Europe and hold it for nearly five years?

To their utter surprise, the day after a large consignment of medical gear had headed out to the Islamist Republic of Iran, German facilities began complaining they hadn’t enough medical equipment to handle their own Covid cases. Well, duh! The next day a prohibition order went out, stopping any future export of medical goods. I wonder could they hear the horse galloping over the fields and the barn door banging in the wind? Jesus wept. So, too, most likely, did the German patients waiting to be seen to. Even more incredibly, at this point Health Minister Spahn was STILL going on about “fear being worse than the virus”. Well no you stupid fucker, it was not. Fear doesn’t generally kill people in their thousands, while the virus does. I begin to run out of expletives for how stupid these people are coming across as being. Master race my arse!

Hold the phone there! Two of the smaller parties actually praised the government for their handling of the crisis? Did I read that - yeah, I read that right. The radical right-wing party AdF disagreed, and while I’m loath to share any common ground with the far right, I have to admit that, based on what I’ve read here, they were on the money and were possibly one of the only ones with the balls to speak against the government. I’m sure they were nutcases who wanted to burn the Reichstag or whatever, but at least they were truthful nutcases. Israel must have surely taken some sneaking pleasure in declaring a quarantine on all German travellers arriving in their country, but it was of course the right thing to do. Well, no: the right thing to have done would have been to have banned them entering Israel, but they didn’t go that far.

Denial seems to have been the watchword in Germany. Even into the first week in March the people were still being told not to worry, this was nothing, it would all pass. Trump must have been taking notes (or sending them), although he probably would not have approved the very important measure the Germans took of banning prostitution for the duration of the crisis. On March 9, with cases standing at 1,200, the first two deaths from the virus were announced. Merkel still refused to instigate any sort of lockdown, or restrict travel. Truth to tell, the Chancellor had been conspicuous by her absence during the previous months, so I guess the running of the crisis management - if it can be called that, with extreme generosity - must have been Spahn. As could only be expected in a country taking pretty much no precautions, and leaving it up to individuals to protect themselves (while still throwing out contradictory advice such as not to bother with disinfectants, those who showed no symptoms should not be temperature tested and so on) members of the German parliament soon got the virus, then Trump blindsided Merkel by banning travel from Germany to the USA on March 12. Germany had not been consulted.

The next day almost all of the federal states in Germany (14 of 16) told Merkel to go fuck herself and closed all their schools. The German Bundesliga (German soccer association) suspended all matches till at least April, to the dismay of the Mayor of Berlin, who had arrogantly claimed the big match between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin would go ahead, with full spectators, the next day. Leaving Germany to it, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark closed their borders. Germany was left scrambling for ventilators and other important medical equipment it had already sent to China and Iran. With 4,500 cases and nine dead, Germany finally got it and went into lockdown on March 16, closing their borders as Italy screamed “Don’t end up like us! This thing is real, and it’s killing us!” The next day the entire European Union closed its borders to any travel from outside of Europe for thirty days, and advised (but did not prohibit) Europeans from travelling. Somehow, incredibly, through I guess some legal loophole, flights still arrived and passengers were allowed in from… China and Iran. Jesus.

Hospitals were by now of course facing a shortage of PPE, while it was reported that 80% of GPs had none. Evidence emerged that a manufacturer of masks had warned in early February of shortages, but had been ignored. German health officials twisted and turned, trying to shift the blame. Curfews began to be imposed by various states, unrest and riots broke out, and panic buying ensued, as it always would. Volkswagen bought medical equipment from China (which could have been originally some of the consignment Germany sent them, if you think about it) and donated it to the German efforts to fight the virus. In a comically tragic episode, six million German-manufactured masks, which for some reason, never explained, were in Kenya, were half-inched and never got to their destination. Germany was now begging China for masks, reversing the role they had played when they had been so sure that the virus was nothing to worry about that they could send the PPE off to China. Bet they wished they had kept them at home!

As they stubbornly and pig-headedly charged with eyes wide open towards disaster, Germany still refused to cancel school exams, declaring they would go ahead on March 25. The Robert Koch Institute, a voice crying unheard in the wilderness, continued to make dire - and as it turned out of course, accurate and true - predictions of how bad this was going to get, and convince the government to take it more seriously. Which they did not. Some took perhaps the easy way out: on March 28 the body of Hesse’s Finance Minister, Thomas Schäfer was discovered near a railway line; clearly the pressure had been too much for him and he had taken his own life. Amazingly, it took till almost April before any sort of mask mandate went in place, and that only happened in certain states. Of course, there being no masks for even hospitals might have had something to do with this; not much point rushing out to buy a mask only to be told there are none to be had. Borders began to open from May 13, with full access to be allowed by June 15.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Country: Saudi Arabia
Continent: Asia
Governing Party:++ None
Political affiliation: None
Main crisis leaders:++ His Majesty King Salman Bin Abdulaziz, His Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Status of country: Kingdom (Unitary Islamist absolute monarchy)
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 562
Deaths (at time of lockdown) Unknown; I can only find details of 1 confirmed death. Right.
Cases (at time of writing):** 547,402
Deaths (at time of writing): 8,922 (official) to 182,773 (independent estimate)
Date of first lockdown: March 23
Duration: 90 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 1
Reaction level+++: 10
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 72%
Score:*** 55

I suppose there are advantages to being an absolute monarchy in a situation such as we faced with the outbreak of Covid, one being that there is no opposition party to thwart or raise a dissenting voice to your plans to tackle it - Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, where the King has the same basic power as the likes of King Louis XIV in France in the seventeenth century, i.e., absolute - and another being that in an absolute and, let’s face it, brutally oppressive monarchy such as that practiced in Saudi Arabia, you really don’t have a choice. If the King says take your vaccine, you take your vaccine. If the King says stay at home, you better believe you’re staying home! So on the surface - and always depending on the attitude of His Majesty to the virus - this should have been a slam-dunk, as you Americans say. No protests or riots here! No disobedience, no refusal to comply, no civil disorder.

But was it like that? And did the King go with science or did he, being subject to the laws of Allah, trust in his god and sneer at vaccines, at the very Coronavirus itself? I ask, not as leading questions, or to give you the answers, but honestly, as I have, until I read it after typing this, no idea which way the Royal Family went, where they stood, which side they came down on when it came to this devilish plague that assaulted believers and infidels alike.

So let’s find out, shall we?

First of all, how did the virus get in? Well, it seems another Islamist Republic was to blame, as the first case was traced to a man returning from Iran via Bahrain (spread it around now, don’t be mean) on March 2. It took another twenty-one days before the King ordered a curfew; nobody was allowed travel within the Kingdom between the hours of 7pm and 6am. What this meant in terms of travel outside of the realm I don’t know, but you certainly could not consider it yet a lockdown. Despite this precaution, and as we have seen in other, more progressive countries, the case load grew, ballooning to 562 by March 23, and the next day to 767, at which point the Kingdom had its first death reported, that of an Afghan national. By the end of the month cases were climbing towards the 1,500 mark.

Prior to this, the King had already banned the entry of Muslims into the country who wished to visit the great shrines at Mecca and Medina, and ordered the Grand Mosque closed for daily sterilisation, and on March 19 all prayers were suspended. For an Islamic nation, this surely came as a massive blow. I mean, people here in Ireland were whining about the churches being closed, but hell, most of them would go to mass once a week, if that, other than the older generation (mostly old ladies) who might go every morning. Now imagine going several times a day, every day, and suddenly you’re prevented from doing so. I wonder, had this not been a monarchy, would unrest, to say the least, have erupted?

To make matters worse for the Muslim population, the next day the two shrines, the major mosques at Medina and Mecca were closed. I suppose consider St. Mark’s Square suddenly being made off-limits to Christians. As early as February 6 His Majesty had banned travel from his Kingdom to China. Like Lombardy in Italy, one area of the Kingdom was placed under total lockdown early, this being the Al Qatif governorate, though the rest of the Kingdom soon followed. Sports events were originally to be played behind closed doors and without spectators, though a week later these were all cancelled until further notice, as was the Saudi Olympics (what?), scheduled to have taken place at the end of March.

Interestingly, and indeed surprisingly to me anyway, it seems that even in so tightly-controlled a country as this, misinformation and disinformation found its way in, and people were arrested for spreading false information. Of course, that might have been false as in, the Palace is reporting lower numbers than there are, or something, but even so, given that maybe you could have had your tongue pulled out for such a crime possibly, it shows how passionate some people were about spreading what they believed to be the truth. Not at all surprisingly, no information is available on who or how many were arrested, what happened to them or if they were even seen again.

Rather oddly, again to me anyway, is that while other countries were putting together special packages of pandemic assistance to help those who had lost their jobs due to Covid, and in a country as filthy rich as Saudi Arabia, the King was busily cancelling the cost-of-living payment and RAISING the level of VAT! And I mean raising! Like, tripling from 5% to 15%! Might as well just drive your people out into the desert and let them die, Your Majesty! It’d be quicker. King Salman also cut public spending and seemed to think that the fall in oil prices, leading to a deficit in the Royal budget, should be taken out on his people. Would it not have made more sense to, I don’t know, sell a few of your Bentleys or a bunch of horses, your Kingship? No? What’s that big guy with the sword coming towards me… oh well, I guess you know your own people, sorry I mentioned it.

As history has shown before with the Black Death, power, status, wealth and privilege are no protection against the plague, and accordingly the Royal Court was infected, with a reported (but not confirmed) 150 members of the Royal Family fell ill. From what I read, the Saudi Royal Family numbers up to 15,000 members, though the more important ones comprise about 2,000. Even so, that’s a reasonably high percentage, indicating that perhaps the Royal Court may have been placing more of its trust in Allah than in face masks and social distancing. In the first week of April the case numbers had rocketed to around 3,000, almost doubling each week.

It should be understood of course that in an absolute monarchy details are hard to confirm, and information is tightly controlled. The last thing the King wants, presumably, is for his people to start believing that he is not in control, which would surely threaten his standing. Perhaps even factions within his own Court might endeavour to take advantage of what would be seen as weakness. I don’t know this, but if we use history as a guide, it’s usually the case: those closest to the monarch are the ones he or she need fear the most, as they are just waiting for their chance to seize power from him or her, assert their own claim to the throne. How this works, if it does, in the Saudi Royal Court I have no clue, I admit, but it does set you thinking.

Anyway, the point is that figures coming out of Saudi Arabia never could and never can be trusted; as you can see above, even now the deaths reported vary wildly between the official figures released and those calculated and reported by an independent (western) source, the Economist. So we can never be certain of the true figure, and as the pandemic raged across the world Saudi Arabia was accused of minimising the figures, downplaying the seriousness of the outbreak. This led to a mass exodus by American diplomats in July, as - official - case numbers reached 100,000. Strangely, it was at this point that the King ordered the lifting of all restrictions, effectively ending the lockdown, though mask wearing and social distancing continued to be enforced.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018