Ray Furlong reports today in RFE/RL’s “Mysterious Death Of Actor As Belarusian Hospitals Fill With ‘Pneumonia’ Cases” that the well-known Belarusian actor Viktar Dashkevich died yesterday in Vitebsk, Belarus. He had been in intensive care connected to a ventilator for six days, and had tested positive for COVID-19. His wife also spent five days in the same hospital with pneumonia.
Despite testing positive for COVID-19, official cause of death was listed as pneumonia. This is following the lead of Belarus president Alyaksandr Lukashenka who has said, “I call this coronavirus nothing more than a psychosis.” Soccer matches continue in Belarus with crowded stadiums, even though the rest of Europe has canceled them.
A Charter 97 report says Dashkevich had contact with staff at the theater on March 18, where rehearsals were continuing despite the fact that the next performances were canceled due to lack of attendance. Eleven of the actors are now on sick leave.
Furlong reports an anonymous medic as saying:
... the patients who are overwhelming the hospitals across the republic are diagnosed with pneumonia. They cannot make a diagnosis of coronavirus because the only way to do that is with a test, which we don’t have.
and also reports fellow actor Irina Tsishkevich as saying:
I’m hearing that many people are comparing the situation with the Chernobyl [nuclear disaster] where the truth was also suppressed.
Before you scoff or take pity on Belarus, consider that the COVID-19 case count is also being suppressed in the US due to lack of testing, and that even now about a dozen US governors have not issued stay-at-home orders for the whole state. Although most of the US is not falling down on the job as badly as Belarus is, COVID-19 is not likely to treat Arkansas, Iowa and Nebraska that much better than it’s treating Belarus.