Final Word from Thursday, February 17, 2022

Senate Pres. Miloš Vystrčil of ODS told his colleagues in the upper chamber last week that the country needs the pandemic law in part because we're living in an epidemic, even according to the definition used for influenza. "Last time I looked at the charts, on Feb. 7, there were 2,000 infections [per 100,000]. A flu epidemic, according to what I found, and I'm not going to play being a doctor any more, because I don't understand this, is 1,400-1,600 infections per 100,000.... This means that there is now an epidemic in our country, because that is simply the way it is." What Parliament's top official failed to recognize is that a flu epidemic is based on people being sick, while the infection rate he cited was based on the results of unreliable tests. You don't need to be a doctor to understand the difference. But it's this kind of logic that runs the world now - Vystrčil is no great exception - and so it is also this kind of logic that the Fiala government will use tomorrow to ram through the pandemic law. [ Czech Republic Petr PM cabinet ruling coalition ]