Editorial
While in Albania and Kosovo the situation is out of control due to coronavirus, the ‘secret’ enemy, kneeling down these two countries with the most alarming figures in terms of victims and infected people, as well as a deterioration of the economic and social situation which has achieved the peak in what is happening at the border crossings lof Kakavija and Kapshtica with Greece these days, Albanian public figures consume energy dealing with other countries.
Thus, as if we were not facing a tragic catastrophe that is killing and destroying economically and psychologically the Albanian people, there are such figures who look ‘behind the fence’, which is in fact an old bad Albanian custom.
In Kosovo, where the concerned parliament approves a law on other strict preventive measures against the virus on August 15, about 400 people had lost their lives since the beginning of the epidemic. In Albania, this figure reached 219 on 14 August. The number of C19 infected people is increasing every day. And most worrying is the questionable state of the health system to cope with the worsening of this tragic disaster.
New outbreaks of epidemics are being created and it is of great concern what is happening in Kakavija, southern Albania, at the border with Greece, where thousands of people are threatened by the coronavirus epidemic among other afflictions in a queue of cars about 25 km long for several days. The tragic death of a 10-year-old child hit by an ambulance on August 15 is dreadful evidence of the situation.
But exactly at the height of this apocalyptic situation, authoritarian Albanian figures in Pristina and Tirana do not lose their sense of humor, especially the politically cloaked one.
The pearl, if we can call it that way, was found in Pristina. Just a few days after the announcement of the registration of the world’s first vaccine against Covid-19 by Russia, a “privileged” person who benefited from this vaccine emerged in the Balkans. The former Minister of Economic Development of Kosovo, Valdrin Lluka, unveiled through a post on Twitter that he had used this vaccine. In his post he stressed that there had been no side effects as yet.
“My family and I received the Russian vaccine for COVID19 and if you are afraid of it as it has not been tested, I tried it and I am happy to report that it has no side effects,” wrote former Minister Lluka.
Albanian media on both sides of the border conveyed this announcement, expressing surprise at how the former Kosovar minister had received this life-saving vaccine when it is still unknown whether its distribution outside Russian territory has begun. What has been announced by Moscow are the guarantee of the vaccine’s effectiveness and the growing interest in it from more than 20 countries around the world.
But the Albanian media interest in the case of the former Kosovar minister is natural because it is about the most vital current topic around the world – the coronavirus vaccine, the wonder how an important Kosovar figure received it for his entire family and above all due to the confrontation of the media and public opinion with the sarcasm, to say the least, of a figure who has run Kosovo’s economy.
The important former Minister of Economy and political figure of Kosovo was quoted on August 14 by Gazeta Express as saying that his entire post on Twitter was an irony. According to him, the Russian vaccine for his family and him had been a joke and fake news.
“Do not write about it as if it were true,” the former minister ‘ordered’ after the outbreak of the news!!!
“My post on Twitter about the Russian vaccine has been ironic and not true. It is something that is spread on the internet in the form of humor. Some of the portals, mainly in Albania, have turned it into supposedly real news, which normally is not the case as it is reported.” This is what Mr. Lluka wrote and furthermore ‘assured’ the readers that “his family and he do not intend to use any vaccine other than the reliable, western ones, if such a thing is needed!”
An uglier humor than this can hardly be found at a time when the ghost of death is really rolling over Kosovo and Albania as around the world. And when its author is one of the most important figures of the state of Kosovo, this does not remain in the limits of humor to mock a medical development of another country as it is the case of Russia.
Since the first day that President Vladimir Putin said that Russian scientists had discovered the first anti COVID-19 vaccine, experts and politicians from different countries, mostly westerners involved in the vaccine production race, have reacted. Their skepticism either because of the time or because of the way it is produced is natural because it relates to their scientific knowledge and expertise as well as to other commercial aspects.
This concern was also echoed by the head of the National Emergency of Albania, Skënder Brataj, quoted by the Albanian media on August 15. According to him, the vaccine produced by Russia has not followed the three standard phases: safety, efficacy and immunity.
“The vaccine registered in Russia for human use did not follow these standard procedures for its production. According to data from the World Health Organization, it should still be in the first phase of clinical trials, the phase in which its safety, frequency of harm and side effects are checked,” said Dr. Brataj on FB. He speaks of the most promising vaccines being, according to him, at an advanced experimentation stage. In his view the most advanced vaccine is the one developed by the cooperation between Oxford and Pomezia’s Advent-Irbm, which has reached phase three.
So in two days Albanians have been sensationally warned against the Russian anti-COVID vaccine, but in different forms. While Dr. Brataj argues as a specialist what he has read while doing his service as a doctor in this global health crisis, when Albania is hit hard by the deadly disease and worsening times are warned, the former minister of Kosovo goes too far with the imagination of his sarcastic humor mocking not the Russians but the Albanians in Kosovo and Albania, the victims of the deadly virus. And he becomes more cynical in his tragic-comic show when he guarantees ‘loyalty’ to Western vaccines.
How much value has the involvement of their authorities in such ridicules or the commercial pharmaceutical races whether Western, Chinese, Russian, Israeli or Indian is meaningless for Albanians: today everyone expects salvation from this deadly virus that knows no boundaries or political affiliation. A vaccine or more of them produced by any country is a welcomed savior everywhere in the world as it has happened in the entire history of titanic wars against such deadly plagues!
© Argumentum
