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Bangladesh Govt. denies CORVID-19 spread, arresting those who disagree

hrw.org

26 points by dumbstein 6 years ago · 12 comments

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squarefoot 6 years ago

  1. "There is no such thing as Covid-19"
  2. "Covid-19 is foreign flu that won't affect any of us. Anyone spreading panic will be punished"
  3. "Covid-19 just got here, but it's just a flu. Anyone spreading panic will still be punished"
  4. "Covid-19 is a bad flu, be damned those foreign agents who brought it here. Still a flu, though"
  5. "Things are under control, don't panic and keep up with normal life"
  6. "Everyone stay home, let's close everything. Anyone breaking these rules will be punished"
  7. "People is still gathering; we're forced to turn off civil liberties in the name of security (blame again other countries to direct public anger to the outside)"
  8. Profit.
Looks like they're at point 2.
  • dumbsteinOP 6 years ago

    People have been worried sick since the end of January, after infectious disease experts briefed the health ministry. The ruling party prohibited everyone to talk about it prior to March 17th. Because they thought if social distancing would be in effect, no one will gather in their celebration that has been in preparation for months. Yes! you heard that right. They they censored all media/news platforms in the country, so more people would show up in a birthday celebration.

    There are only 300 ICU units (in the government hospitals which are permitted to treat infectious diseases) in the country of 165.6 million, roughly 1 for every 600k on a good day. alarming number of people are dying from pneumonia of "unknown cause" everyday, while the government is insisting that there is nothing going on in the country, against 900k phone calls to the helplines, approximately 1100 CORVID19 tests were conducted in total. I am not sure how this will lead to profit when people can't get treatment even with all the money they have.

  • gowld 6 years ago

    indentation is not for lists in HN. It's for short code blocks.

    If you want linebreaks, just use 2 linebreaks per line:

    1. "There is no such thing as Covid-19"

    2. "Covid-19 is foreign flu that won't affect any of us. Anyone spreading panic will be punished"

    3. "Covid-19 just got here, but it's just a flu. Anyone spreading panic will still be punished"

    4. "Covid-19 is a bad flu, be damned those foreign agents who brought it here. Still a flu, though"

    5. "Things are under control, don't panic and keep up with normal life"

    6. "Everyone stay home, let's close everything. Anyone breaking these rules will be punished"

    7. "People is still gathering; we're forced to turn off civil liberties in the name of security (blame again other countries to direct public anger to the outside)"

    8. Profit.

newyankee 6 years ago

I mean they could've taken inspiration from India's 21 day lockdown. Indian PM was very clear, despite the almost impossible nature of the task he clearly mentioned in his first speech that 'Jaan hai to Jahaan hai' roughly translates to you can only enjoy the world if you live first, so first save yourself.

Bangladesh is even more densely populated than India but hopefully the summer heat reduces the spread. Although i do empathize with how difficult and nearly impossible it is for them to make people stay inside. Also difficult to convince religious people who feel it is a rumor or something else. Unless someone they know dies.

dumbsteinOP 6 years ago

To summarize the article - Bangladesh government initially denied the outbreak, now denying the seriousness of the spread; silencing (mostly arrests) those who express concern over the government’s handling of the epidemic.

Meanwhile, a leaked interagency United Nations memo on Bangladesh’s Country Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19 estimates that up to two million people could die from the disease in Bangladesh if immediate steps are not taken to contain the spread of the virus.

noodlesUK 6 years ago

Pretty sure crows don’t cause worldwide chaos. Anyone able to fix the typo in the title?

m0zg 6 years ago

Many people don't know this but Bangladesh is a rather large country by population: 160 million people. 2x the size of Germany or France, with nowhere near the level of medical infrastructure. If they don't get smart about this very, very quickly, they're completely screwed.

  • newyankee 6 years ago

    Not only that it is an Islamic country which means thousands of people do gather for Friday prayers at every mosque which adherents take seriously. Not trying to criticize the practice just saying that it is not easy to stop people from attending, this has been happening across India too.

    The biggest super spreaders in India was an international religious gathering of Tableeghi Jamaat which took place despite a ban.

MR4D 6 years ago

Right now it seems like the entire world is competing for a Darwin Award.

Scary how common this approach is right now. I’m starting to lose faith in humanity’s ability to evolve beyond the ape.

  • m0zg 6 years ago

    Actually, no, not for a Darwin award, seeing that the vast majority of those dying are well past reproductive age. Some other kind of award, I just don't know which.

kyuudou 6 years ago

Maybe they confused it with some crow pathogen

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