Life or freedom (Politics of coronavirus outbreak)

The lockdown in Spain has lasted two months so far. The next week the government is going to introduce a new bill in the parliament for an extension of one more month. We know when we started, but we don’t see the end of this nightmare yet. In the meantime, we witnessed many changes I’m going to address now.

Today, I want to speak to you about the current situation in Spain regarding the coronavirus pandemic. First of all, I have to admit it has been hard for me to make this video due to the stark scenario in this country. This situation discouraged me when I thought of telling what is going on here. Spain has dived into an endless spiral of troubles that are going to take a heavy toll on the population. The impact of the pandemic on society, besides the government measures, is massive at all levels. For this reason, it’s a daunting task to set forth what’s happening in Spain because this process has multiple dimensions.

Despite that, I intend to develop an overview of this situation. I’m going to deal with different aspects, such as the toll of dead, and the official narrative to hide this reality. In addition to this, I’ll address the repressive measures adopted, and the expansion of State control.

Spain has the highest proportion of deaths in the world. Nowadays, the official number of fatalities for coronavirus in Spain is over 27,000 people. The current population of Spain is roughly 47 million people. That contrasts with Italy, which has over 30,000 deaths and a population of 60 million people. The UK shows similar figures for fatalities with a population of 66 million people. Even the US, with nearly 330 million people, has around 85,000 deaths so far.

It’s well known that other countries have taken Spain as a model of what not to do in these circumstances. Indeed, different countries are contacting former Spanish officials to get advice about what they shouldn’t do to prevent ending up in the same situation as Spain.

The official narrative hides this reality, and it shows it under a different light. In this regard, high rank-officials and members of the government claim the State is saving lives. However, it is killing people.

The beginning of the pandemic started with the intervention of the State by fearmongering. The Health Department spread panic and prompted people to go to hospitals if they thought they might have symptoms compatible with coronavirus. As a result, thousands of people crowded into waiting rooms at hospitals, and they all got infected. The consequence of this was the infection of doctors and nurses. Since then on, the virus propagated in all directions. That explains why more than 20% of the total infected people are doctors and nurses. Another explanation is the fact that the Health Department forced its personnel to keep working despite having symptoms compatible with coronavirus.

Now, the government calls the Health Department’s staff heroes to hide this terrible reality. Besides this, the State has denied medical treatment to some infected people because they are a financial burden. I refer to older people, especially at nursing homes, but also to patients with chronic illnesses, those with any mental disability, and other similar populations.

I documented this in Life or freedom (Politics of coronavirus outbreak).

That’s not all. I want to add more information in this respect that puts under question the official narrative. I refer to the management of this health crisis at hospitals where bureaucrats and other officials denied medical attention to those who weren’t very important people. What do I mean by this? Let me give you an example. David Tejera, a prestigious journalist, outlined in an article his experience at the public hospital Ramón y Cajal when he had coronavirus. He almost died. In his article, he explained his health went worse quickly, and the doctor told him they were considering taking him to the critical care unit. Everything was arranged if it was necessary to do so, and that meant other patients in the same situation wouldn’t have a place there. He denounced this in his article.

What is the reason to provide specific people with health treatment and exclude others in the same situation? He is a famous journalist, and probably health authorities considered him very important people. In addition to this, I have to mention he was the boyfriend of the current queen of Spain, Letizia.

When public institutions experience this kind of shortages, they put important people first. I mean those who are part of the elite or high society. That is, wealthy, influential, and powerful people. Indeed, authorities are taking advantage of this crisis to get rid of those who are a burden, as I explained before. However, we witness the privileges of the well-off when they use public services.

I’m going to add another example. This is a heartbreaking example. A Spanish influencer named Antonio Gutierrez has a Youtube channel. He is doing a terrific job by informing people about what is going on in this health crisis in Spain. Many people contact him to report their experiences and make them public. Recently, he received a disturbing report from an orderly who works at Puerta del Sur hospital in Madrid. He told the story of a ten years old child with coronavirus who was in the critical care unit. This child had breathing problems, and he was connected to a ventilator. This worker witnessed how an important member of the government came into the ward and took the ventilator from this child because he needed it, despite the child needed it more than him. This child died the following day.

If you are famous, influential, powerful, a member of the wealthy elite, or the bureaucracy, you have all the medical attention you want. Those who are not part of this group don’t receive this attention, even if they need it more.

We’ve been in a state of alarm for more than two months, which is, in theory, the lowest of the three degrees of state of emergency in Spain. However, the reality is different, and what should have been a limited restriction of rights and liberties has become their abolition. Why this? The reason is the ambiguity of the decree issued by the government. It vests the law enforcement agencies, the Health Department, and even the military, with too many discretional powers. As a result, the way they interpret and apply the law in each case is up to them. For this reason, we are witnessing a lot of police brutality. Besides, the number of fines swelled up to almost one million in this period.

Although in the last few weeks the government has relaxed restrictions in some areas, the pressure is still there. We’re still confined, but we can go to the street one hour a day and in specific hours, depending on your age. We’re like inmates, with a timetable to come out to the prison’s courtyard.

Besides this, the government is thinking of additional restrictions in different fields. Let me give you some examples. For instance, our authorities consider necessary to limit free speech in order to prevent the spread of fake news. They argue that some people are propagating this news and taking advantage of the situation. Consequently, they were suggesting a new bill. However, they have police patrolling on the Internet, especially social media, and they removed messages, videos, and other information. They also have closed accounts. To develop this censorship, they have the collaboration of companies, such as Whatsapp, Facebook, and so on. Besides, the extent of the government’s censorship goes as far as preventing the publication of books. That’s the case of Amazon. This company has blocked the printing and distribution of books related to coronavirus and even to other topics. I recall a Spanish author, Félix Rodrigo Mora, who denounced they prevented him from the publication of a book. He is not alone.

I’m not talking about a few cases, but about a public policy of Spanish authorities. Clear evidence of this is the official recognition by the chief of the Civil Guard staff, General José Manuel Santiago.

In addition to all of this, the government has made compulsory the use of facemasks in public transport. Aside from the controversy about the efficiency of this measure in health terms, authorities are taking advantage of this decision to make money. Recently, we saw on the mass media how the government claimed that manufacturers had deceived them with flawed facemasks. Many people still believe this version, but I smell a rat. They are ordering facemasks in China when they could buy them here. Why? Some people say it’s cheaper to buy them abroad. I’m not sure because there is a vast national demand for this product, and they could produce it at a reasonable price.

The reason is that high-rank officials, with the consent of members of the government, are diverting the money. How? They resort to China because it’s cheap, and the profit they can get is higher. At the same time, they manage the flow of money overseas with shell corporations, bank accounts in Switzerland, and contractors that don’t exist. The result is the purchase of flawed facemasks. They can do all of this because they are beyond the reach of the public eye and other home institutions. That would be very difficult in Spain. In the meantime, they arrange public contracts with distributors and companies with good connections in the government. Finally, they force the population to buy their facemasks. If something goes wrong in the process, they blame unknown producers. Fewer and fewer people buy their stories.

The State has increased its control on society, and we’re experiencing several changes that will lead to a new scenario. In some way, we’re witnessing how the constitutional State self-transforms into a totalitarian State. I want to remark that the Nazis didn’t need to repeal the Weimar constitution when they came to power because it made possible the Nazi regime. In Spain, it may happen something similar if the State keeps expanding its power by using the pandemic as an excuse.

For instance, the government has considered different plans to control people’s health. One of them contemplates sending the military to citizens’ homes to check them and find infected people. They decided to leave aside this idea for now, but it’s still on the table. That means they consider forcing people to pass tests and take away infected individuals as a possibility.

The government has different expert committees made of people from academia, business, bureaucracy, politics, and so on. Most of them are still unknown, and the government is actively concealing any information of these experts who make big decisions in this critical situation. They resort to laws from the dictatorship era that are still in force, such as the law of official secrets. They didn’t hesitate to openly admit they don’t want to receive pressures from anyone. Is it a dictatorial attitude? Absolutely.

What else are they plotting to do? We know the strategy of the government goes toward more control of the population through geolocation. They are considering the implementation of a new policy aimed to extend the Health Department control of the population with a specific app installed in smartphones. They argue this measure would be helpful to prevent the propagation of the virus if there is a new outburst in next fall. To do so, they count with the help of Google and Apple.

I don’t want to finish without mentioning the economic situation of this country. The irrational public policy developed by the government will involve a contraction of not less than 12% of the economy. Unemployment has skyrocketed, as well as the public debt that is over 100% of the GDP.

This situation is going to produce a lot of suffering for many people, up to the point of leading them to a desperate situation, and the increase of the collateral deaths of this pandemic. This country will have very difficult to recover from this, and social conflict may outbreak by the next fall. Nothing good is going to come out from that and the current polarization on the political stage. I wish I were wrong.

Question of the day

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