Final Word from Tuesday, March 9, 2021

Dir. Miloslav Ludvík of Motol Hospital told HN that people are coming to his hospital scared to death. "They arrive in relatively good shape," he said, "but they're so scared they almost feel they're going to die here. Psychology plays an extremely important role." He then criticized the doomsayers who stress old people out by speaking of tens of thousands of more deaths. One of them is Pres. Milan Kubek of the Medical Chamber (whom Ludvík did not mention by name). His scare tactics turn the do-no-harm part of the Hippocratic Oath on their head. Yet Kubek has unhindered access to Czech TV and Czech Radio, which have a key role in informing the public about the crisis. Kubek's extremist opinions (such as the need for an immediate shutdown of all factories and government offices) are often adopted by the public stations as dogma. As a public service, Czech TV and Czech Radio could start keeping a running tab of how many people they have helped scare to death. [ Czech Republic Prague association Hospodářské noviny ]