Best columns: International NEWS 15
AUSTRALIA
URUGUAY
What good is a quarantine system that isn’t air-
tight? asked epidemiologist Tony Blakely. The en-
tire state of Victoria had to go back into lockdown
last week, thanks to a breach at a quarantine
hotel. An asthmatic man who had returned from
abroad—and who, it turned out, was infected with
Covid-19—used his nebulizer to inhale medicine
while in his room, and the resulting germ-infested
mist wafted into a “poorly ventilated corridor”
and then “hitched a ride on hapless staff out into
Melbourne.” That nebulizer has spawned 16 cases
so far, more than double the previous rolling
seven-day average of cases in the entire country.Clearly, we need to tighten our quarantine pro-
tocols. All staffers at quarantine hotels should be
vaccinated immediately. And passengers arriving
on international flights should be housed only in
hotels “that turn the air over 10 times an hour or
more,” and in rooms with windows and doors
that open to the outside. If we don’t have enough
such spaces, then we should let in only as many
foreign arrivals as we can safely accommodate.
Australia has done extremely well in beating back
the coronavirus, but we can’t afford to get com-
placent. Until the pandemic is defeated worldwide,
we will need “hypervigilance.”Uruguay is in shock after losing one of its most
famous soccer stars to suicide, said Luis Cabral.
Santiago García, 30, was found dead in his apart-
ment earlier this month. The forward had been
playing for Argentine team Godoy Cruz since
2016, and was the top scorer in the club’s history,
with 51 goals in 122 games. But his play slumped
last year after the pandemic forced a break in the
game schedule, and club president José Mansur
had recently denounced García as a bad influence
and said his time with the team was finished. We
know now that the behaviors Mansur cited—the
“poor performance, lack of motivation, weightgain, and missing workouts”—were signs of
García’s depression. He had, in fact, been receiving
psychiatric treatment. At the start of this year, the
soccer star received another hit: García tested posi-
tive for Covid-19 and was forced to quarantine in
his apartment, unable to go home to be with his
family in Uruguay. It is simply inexcusable that the
club did not check on this young man and offer
him the treatment he so obviously needed. Soccer
players are prone to depression, given that they
often live abroad and face “intense performance
pressure.” Those who manage them have a re-
Re sponsibility to protect their mental health.
ute
rs
When Covid
escapes from
quarantine
Tony Blakely
The Sydney Morning HeraldA brilliant
athlete
in despair
Luis Cabral
El PaísHaiti is once again spiraling into vio-
lence and political chaos, said Nicolas
Bourcier in Le Monde (France). Thou-
sands of protesters took to the streets of
Port-au-Prince and other cities last week,
lighting barricades of burning tires and
demanding the resignation of President
Jovenel Moïse. “Most of the population
as well as jurists and civil society orga-
nizations” say that Moïse’s term ended
on Feb. 7, five years after his predeces-
sor left the presidency. But because the
2015–16 presidential election was so
chaotic, Moïse wasn’t actually sworn
into office until Feb. 7, 2017. That year-
long delay, the president says, means his five-year term expires in- The United Nations and the U.S.—Haiti’s most important
backer—support his claim. What complicates matters is that
there is currently no national legislature. Moïse’s administration
failed to hold the legislative elections that were due in 2019, and
he has been ruling by decree for a year. Claiming a coup was
being organized against him, Moïse last week announced the
arrest of 23 alleged plotters and the forced retirement of three
Supreme Court justices. Now the opposition has named one of
the fired justices, Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis, as interim presi-
dent, but the military and police remain loyal to Moïse.
Madness has enveloped our country, said Frantz Duval in Le Nou-
velliste (Haiti). Protesters have thrown rocks at security forces,
and police have blasted demonstrators with tear gas and rubber
bullets, killing at least one person. Backers of Moïse should re-
member that he does not have the power to fire a Supreme Courtjustice or to rule as a dictator. And
supporters of Jean-Louis must concede
that nowhere in our constitution does
it provide for a Supreme Court justice
to assume the presidency. With the
executive and the judiciary attacking
one another, and the legislature entirely
absent, Haiti is veering from “the
narrow path of the rule of law and de-
mocracy.” But then, given our history
of U.S. imperialism, coups, and coun-
tercoups, the rule of law “never had a
good reputation in Haiti anyway.”Moïse is just another in a “long string
of corrupt, autocratic, and brutal” Haitian leaders, said Gustavo
Sierra in Infobae.com (Argentina). During his four years in office,
he has turned Port-au-Prince into “a city of fear and despair.”
Armed gangs loyal to Moïse patrol the neighborhoods, “wreaking
terror” and kidnapping and ransoming street vendors, merchants,
students, and even cops. Moïse has proclaimed that he is no ty-
rant, “but his actions suggest otherwise.” Why does Washington
still consider him Haiti’s rightful leader? Because to do otherwise
would invite anarchy, said Jacobo García in El País (Spain). Not
just the U.S. but also France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Canada
all recognize that under the constitution, Moïse is legally the presi-
dent. They have criticized his “authoritarian turn,” but under-
stand that his fall “could mean destabilization in a geopolitically
important area of the Caribbean.” Moïse’s armed supporters—
“more powerful than the state itself”—could turn to trafficking
drugs or humans. Still, “with the streets in turmoil and the oppo-
sition mobilized,” Moïse’s downfall may be only a matter of time.Haiti: Dueling presidents and a democratic crisis
Police and anti-Moïse protesters clash in Port-au-Prince.