Final Word from Monday, July 13, 2020

Czech travelers who return starting today from Serbia and Montenegro will have 72 hours to produce a negative covid-19 test, or they will be required to go into a two-week quarantine. The reason given by the Czech health ministry for increasing the risk profile of these two countries is that there has been a large rise in the number of infections in the past week and that there are now more than 50 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants. If covid-19 were an influenza, there would need to be 1,600-1,800 cases per 100,000 inhabitants to declare an epidemic in the CR, yet European countries are now making historic decisions about the free movement of their citizens based on as few as 10 cases of covid-19 per 100,000. In his 2017 book On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder said that we submit to tyranny when we renounce the difference between what we want to hear and what is really the case. His advice is to try to recognize tyranny as it approaches, and not to fall for it. [ Czech Republic coronavirus ]