Belarus also had the lowest covid deaths in Europe, there have been western studies on it and their conclusion was largely because healthcare was maintained enough through the collapse that they have I think it’s 7 beds per 1000 people, versus the US and UK having somewhere between 0.8-1.2 beds per 1000, and Russia and other eastern bloc countries were much lower too because of the post-USSR privatization and plundering being so much worse. I think even Germany only had 1.6 beds per 1000. I forget the exact numbers so don’t quote them exactly, but it is a studied topic. Meanwhile western media was berating Belarus for a couple jokes Lukashenko made irt covid about “go to a sauna and drink some vodka you’ll be fine” as if the government was letting everyone die (It’s a thing I’ve noticed is the western media, either deliberately or out of total ignorance for the language and culture never even allows consideration that Lukashenko might be joking with the press).

But the west media was hand-wringing in articles like Belarus were taking a full on ‘ignore it and it will go away’ approach, while at the same time having articles of pro-west and reactionary protestors against the government in Belarus being dragged away by police to show the authoritarianism (the favorite liberal buzzword which never applies to US mass prisons or militarized hypermurderous police), and in those article photos all of the police are wearing masks (and the protestors in large part weren’t). It’s always projection. Cops in the US never wore masks, even during the Floyd protests at the height of covid before vaccine access; even in cities where people were dying en masse because there were no hospital beds or supplies. Closest thing the pigs did to masking up was the visors on their robocop riot gear when they were brutally bashing heads supported by military humvees and experimental war machines. Over a dozen people were killed by cops in those protests, many within a few weeks of the start. But no look over at Belarus and Lukashenko!! Pay no attention to the fascists behind our curtain.