Final Word from Tuesday, September 22, 2020

New Health Min. Roman Prymula is similar to his prime minister, Andrej Babiš, in the sense that both are able to contradict themselves without missing a beat. Sometimes even within the span of a sentence or two. Prymula said in HN yesterday that epidemiology is just mathematics and can be calculated, but he added a few seconds later that no one probably expected the rise in new covid-19 cases to be as dramatic as it is now. So much for the math. Prymula is now the biggest proponent of another state of emergency so that businesses can be closed, yet he told Jaromír Soukup of TV Barrandov on May 25 (at the 4-minute mark in the video) that covid-19 poses no greater risk to the general population than influenza, although it does to the at-risk groups. At the time he promoted a selective strategy that addressed at-risk groups but allowed the rest of the population to get on with its business. As health minister he now has a unique opportunity not to contradict himself. [ Czech Republic Hospodářské noviny Television coronavirus ]