Some time ago, Belarus President Lukashenko suggested his countrymen drink vodka and take saunas to ward off the virus. I suppose that seemed to work for a while, but the worldometer Belarus page shows a steeply growing number of cases there. That is, until Friday. The last two days they’ve not reported any new cases, although they have reported a handful of deaths.
So what’s going on there? I don’t think it’s a weekend effect, since they reported numbers the previous weekend. Did the vodka and saunas do the trick? Or has Lukashenko suppressed the reports or stopped any testing?
BTW, Belarus has not done any lockdown. They’re still playing football, for example, and have not closed any borders.
Yes, that could be it. Today (Monday) the worldometer does have a number. It’s over twice the number from Friday, so it may be a combined total of the weekend. Too bad. I was hoping the vodka and sauna thing would work…
I hope I don’t inspire a woo-woo scam, but an upscale Belarus-ish therapy sauna would feature vodka vapor for deep-breathing stupors and cures. Don’t try this at home, kids.
IANAD, but I believe he may have something there with the vodka theory. I myself have been doing a non-randomized clinical trial with a sample size of 1 involving daily doses of rum, and the results so far are very encouraging – the number of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases is 0. Statisticians may quibble, but facts are facts!
Our non-randomized trial with sample size of 2 is also showing very promising results on daily doses of wine (both red and white) with occasional booster shots of bourbon. Further study is clearly required.
In the Wave 1 beer vs. non-beer conditions, our household N = 2 has 0 cases*, which is not statistically significant but rather demonstrates that both treatments are equally effective at squelching COVID-19. In Wave 2, we will reverse the treatments to add statistical power to our observations.
*(of COVID or beer)
You raise an excellent point as the cohort in my sample has also been receiving substantial doses of wine, mostly red. This may be a confounding factor in my study of the efficacy of rum, but it’s unavoidable as it’s really the only way that my sample can enjoy a decent dinner.