Epidemiologist: Financial Losses, Death Toll Increased due to Government's Passivity

Zoran Radovanovic epidemiologist (printscreen: YouTube/N1)

Dr Zoran Radovanovic, a renowned Serbian epidemiologist, said on Nov. 25 that economic losses should have never been an excuse for a decision not to enforce restrictions, because "the resulting death toll and financial losses will be much higher" because of a massive spread of the coronavirus that "the government's passivity has made possible."

The Parliament of a Free Serbia quoted Dr Radovanovic as saying that it was the third time the Serbian government's Crisis Headquarters "failed professionally and ethically."

"The first wave of the pandemic was well underway, but the Crisis Headquarters was still blind to the imminent the danger - they laughed when they talked about the virus in February, and when they started to buy tests and equipment, it was already too late. The second wave came about because even the medical professionals in the Covid-19 response team had obediently accepted that an election should be more important than health and lives. The watershed moment in the third wave was an 'appeal' by the leader of the ruling party that night life should go on" the doctor explained.

What makes the current epidemiological situation worse is that "one man makes all decisions in this state," and when emergency circumstances occur, "the signs of a collapse emerge," Dr Radovanovic has warned. Serbia's leading epidemiologist also said that "poor organization" in the healthcare sector had also contributed to the exhaustion of medical workers.