The two cities in question are Genoa and Maribor and they are, respectively, in Italy and Slovenia. I have reported from Genoa in these pages before, once in November 2021 at the height of the Covid madness and twice thereafter as things began to ease, once in May 2022 when I concluded that Italy wore its Covid scars like a badge of honour and then in August 2022 when things were more or less back to normal. I also visited Maribor in December 2021 when travel restrictions were especially tight across Europe and I had to transit with whatever was available. I recall deserted airports and being challenged about my reluctance to wear a mask on flights in both directions.
I left Genoa on a Friday and after a brief visit home, arrived in Maribor on a Sunday and the contrast between the two cities with regard to Covid is palpable, undoubtedly reflecting the difference in the two countries. In Italy, masks are still very much in evidence with, I reckon, about a quarter of people in the streets still wearing them and another quarter doing that uniquely Italian thing of having a mask permanently fixed by the ear straps to their wrists.
Conversations with colleagues about Covid are hard as eyes are lowered as are voices almost in reverence to the pandemic and never a critical word about mask mandates, lockdowns or vaccine policies is uttered. As if to convince me, one very irritated colleague brought up all sorts of graphs and data on his phone and thrust them in my face: the numbers of people who had been infected with Covid (completely decontextualised from a denominator); the numbers of people who died during 2020-21 (without any consideration of whether this was ‘with’ ‘of’ or unrelated); and the number of people who had been on ventilators. I reminded him that in the U.K. we had stopped routinely ventilating people within weeks of the onset of Covid in 2020 as it was killing them. He did have the grace to admit that he knew that but, nevertheless, he had tried his best to use the figures to convince me how bad things had been in Italy and mainly for our nursing colleagues.
I questioned the doctoral students I was teaching about masks as only a few months earlier they had all been wearing them. Silence. I asked if they were aware of the evidence about the effectiveness of masks. Silence. Finally I asked if any of them had bothered to look at any of the evidence, for instance the Cochrane Review on masks prior to Covid and, more importantly, the more recent updated review. I got a response from one student this time which was to the effect that masks must work otherwise the university would not tell them to use them and also teach them about the use of face masks in their undergraduate degrees. Mere words are insufficient to convey my response. I still despair.
My conclusion is that the Italians, with few exceptions, ‘got it bad’ during Covid. I have previously described their obsession with illness and with hospitals but it is abundantly clear that they believed whatever their Government, or anyone in authority, told them and fell in line accordingly. They are also suffering from a long Covid hangover and seem unable to let go of the mindset developed and habits acquired during the Covid years. Needless to say, all the colleagues I spoke to were up to date with their Covid vaccines and boosters.
It was a considerable relief to spend a night in the U.K. and then a joy to arrive in Slovenia where, in 48 hours, I have not seen a single person wearing a mask. All signage related to Covid such as social distancing stickers and other posters has gone. All that remains, at least in my hotel, were some hand sanitising gels but, I imagine, such stocks of these were purchased that they must get rid of them somehow. Otherwise, where I gave a lecture to the health faculty, a large Perspex screen remained affixed to the front of the lectern. But it was much to the embarrassment of my hosts. Contrast that with Italy where they point proudly to the vestiges of the Covid years.
I asked a colleague over dinner about Covid and face masks to which the reply indicated that it was all well behind them, nobody wore face masks, and I did not sense any great enthusiasm for the Covid vaccines either. I shared some of what was happening in the U.K. now and the revelations about Government stupidity and the lies and deliberate use of fear to which I was assured that this did not only happen in the U.K.
One especially knowledgeable colleague, a health information scientists and complete Covid sceptic told me that the public in Maribor were beginning to ask questions about the number of local doctors buying up properties in the city. Apparently doctors, and presumably other health professionals, were paid eye-watering bonuses — mainly for doing nothing — and have made their fortunes. Another fine example of Covid profligacy.
The same colleague told me about how, across the border in Croatia, one of his colleagues who ran a large PCR laboratory was offered €200 (£177) per test. While his other Croatian PCR colleagues raked in the cash he refused to participate as he was clear that the tests were not intended to be diagnostic. He not only missed out on making a fortune, he is now a pariah in the PCR world. Another fine example of Covid tyranny.
I conclude that Slovenia is further down the road of Covid recovery than even the U.K., where masks and other signs of the Covid years persist. Whether or not we will ever completely shake this off I can only hope. Italy, on the other hand, has barely started to recover. When we say that this must never happen again, we have to mean it.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
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I’m astonished at the Italians, I always thought they had more of a healthy disrespect for authority.
And yet there is something about them that has to make you nervous.
For starters, they birthed and embraced fascism.
They were the “free” western nation that first copied China and inspired all the masty little autocrats quietly lying in wait in every other country.
As far as dropping the masks, the contrast with Spain, which was also “hit hard” early, couldn’t be greater. If you travel to Spain now you’ll struggle to see a mask. This was a place that embraced masks like nowhere else in the world. But recently the government was pretty much forced to drop them in public transport because people were clearly fed up.and highly non compliant.
I don’t know what it is about the Italians, but there’s something not totally right with them.
We were at Mt Etna in December. 20 of us. At the top. Guess who was diapered – the Italians. No one else. Just the Italians. On top of mountain. Clear, breezy, beautiful day. Summit of Etna. Diapered.
That kind of collective stupid is indeed, very very dangerous.
You make it sound like they would have elected someone with known ties to the Mafia as their Prime Minister.
After 2 000 years of Catholic authoritarianism, then Fascism it’s an unhealthy respect for authority – largely due to the ingrained ‘Do as you are told – or else.’
I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the population need to have a set of rules that define how to live their lives. There also seems to be a need to cast out those who break with these rules. I think this is the basis of how religions exist.
Which is why dismantling Christianity and purging it from our society without any thought or consideration to the benefits it brings is reckless.
The likes of Dawkins and Harris (and Hitchens if he was still alive) have a lot to answer for.
Agree. The cult of $cience all from the ‘enlightenment’. As the author states in the article, the student’s only comeback on the baby shit catchers was that they must work because ‘university say, teacher say’.
And parents pay £20 K quid per year total costs, for that level of stupid….
Might depend on your definition of religion, but it’s also the basis of most professional institutions, corporate entities, and political parties.
Absolutely. People seem to need the structure and can’t stand it being disrupted, even with good (or even fundamental) reason.
I have been to Slovenia (lake Bled) for a wedding and found it to be a nice country. I’ll have to add it to the list for my asylum application for when our gov brings in the digital social credit CBDC tyranny.
On sailing/cycling holiday (I thoroughly recommend it) in Croatia in Oct 2021. There were 12 German speakers, Germans, Swiss & Austrians. And, 12 English speakers (though all the German speakers spoke excellent English), American, Canadian & us 2 Brits. Of the 7 Croatian crew, none vaccinated, all highly sceptical of the whole thing. Of the tourists we were the only unvaccinated & the only sceptical ones. We were ostracised a bit by the Americans who refused to sit at our table or be near us at all. The Canadians were cool about it all but our scepticism was totally novel to them. They also surprised me by never having heard of Jordon Peterson.
Also cycled round Slovenia last summer (thoroughly recommended too, like a poor man’s Switzerland), pleasantly sceptical.
What happened to Americans, descendants of immigrants with enough oomph to survive in a new land? An acquaintance just told me about her 70-ish parents who finally came down covid, fairly bad cases. We’re so thankful they’ve been vaccinated! This from a woman who got fairly sick after each of many jabs and from her daughter in vet school with many years of biology classes behind her.
Interesting to compare Slovenia with Czech Republic, which was gung-ho about restrictions as I recall. But it seemed that former Soviet states were generally more suspicious of government heavy-handedness.
Whoops, mixed up Slovakia and Slovenia. Well, what about East and West German responses? Someone could have a field day conducting sociological studies on responses by different countries and pockets of citizenry. I saw an Ed Dowd interview with stats showing that people with MBAs had the least jab rate in the US. I’m sure TPTB are studying responses and ways to counter them in the future.
My son worked as an au pair in Italy from October to December 2021. He had been vaccinated that summer in the USA with the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine. By the time he travelled to Italy they were looking for QR coded vaccine passes. His USA vaccine cert didn’t have a QR code. He had checked with the NHS before he travelled about whether he could get an NHS vaccine cert based on his US vaccine, the only way was for him to get a booster here which he wasn’t prepared to do. His first problem on arriving in Italy was that he couldn’t get on a fast train without the cert so had to wait until the following morning to get a slow train which didn’t require one.
The mother of the family was a nightmare, she tried to curtail what he did in his weekends off as he might bring covid into the house. She made him isolate in his room a couple of times for a few days just in case he was infected. If he did go anywhere the rules were that he had to go the the chemist first to get a test for a temporary covid pass (government rules). He couldn’t believe how obsessed she was about covid. Towards the end of the 3 months she gave him an ultimatem – if he went away for the weekend he wouldn’t be allowed back in the house. I should point out that he wasn’t out partying and drinking, he was sight seeing. He had a blazing row with her and came back to the UK a few days early. It turned out she had done him a favour as the travel rules within Italy changed a couple of days before he had been due to come home and he wouldn’t have been able to travel to the airport even with a temporary pass. I often wonder how the next au pair she employed fared.
Even though this must never happen again, everything else is still happening: drag queens, trashing our culture and history, destroying small & medium businesses with ever higher taxes, Ulez, LTNs !5 minute cities and every other piece of Net Zero Tyranny. We need more people to stand up against all of this more often
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near Everyman Cinema & play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
“…the public in Maribor were beginning to ask questions about the number of local doctors buying up properties in the city. Apparently doctors, and presumably other health professionals, were paid eye-watering bonuses — mainly for doing nothing — and have made their fortunes.”
Hmm – I wonder how many doctors – and other ‘health-care’ professionals in the U.K. – will be investing in properties and such like, after the latest
30 pieces of silverlucrative pension changes announced in the recent budget? Changes intended to reward by retaining, or entice back, those with experience and longtime skills in the ‘profession’…