How Belarusian officials withhold information about COVID-19 from the public. Editors of Belarusian media tell their stories

Iryna Leushyna, BelaPAN chief editor: it is practically impossible to get a comment from the Health Ministry

The Min­istry’s press ser­vice posts on Viber and Telegram for jour­nal­ists who cov­er COVID-19. The posts are reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed. How­ev­er, the infor­ma­tion is incom­plete. For exam­ple, there is no data on patients with severe dis­ease on mechan­i­cal ven­ti­la­tion, or on local out­breaks of COVID-19.

There is no infor­ma­tion on the method­ol­o­gy of how COVID-19 deaths are deter­mined. There­fore,  it remains unclear why Belarus has such a low COVID-19 death toll, while the dis­ease cas­es grow fast.  The Min­istry of Health says that patients who died had had chron­ic dis­eases, but in some cas­es, their rel­a­tives dis­agree with the Min­istry.

The Min­istry’s Spokesper­son is very reluc­tant to com­mu­ni­cate with reporters, mak­ing it almost impos­si­ble to get her com­ment. Only in iso­lat­ed cas­es, she helped to inter­pret the con­fus­ing fig­ures in sit­u­a­tion reports.

The Min­istry of Health has not held press con­fer­ences for jour­nal­ists since April 17.

The behav­ior of pub­lic health offi­cials dur­ing press con­fer­ences is a sep­a­rate mat­ter. They turn on caps lock voice, and lec­ture jour­nal­ists on how to work and what to write about instead of giv­ing clear answers to ques­tions.

About 10 years ago, a new pol­i­cy was imposed in the health care sys­tem. It required all its offi­cials and experts not to talk to reporters, unless it was coor­di­nat­ed with the Min­istry’s press ser­vice. Unequal access to infor­ma­tion for the state and inde­pen­dent media has become espe­cial­ly vis­i­ble dur­ing COVID-19 cov­er­age.

For exam­ple, it is telling that the offi­cial covid-19 page stopcovid.belta.by with the Health Min­istry’s logo is host­ed by the state news agency BelTA.

The state-run media reg­u­lar­ly pub­lish inter­views, com­ments, and expla­na­tions by med­ical and pub­lic health offi­cials, while inde­pen­dent media are denied such an oppor­tu­ni­ty. Pub­lic health experts are afraid to give com­ments in the open, or to pro­vide their names. Often they are reluc­tant to have their com­ments audio record­ed. In this sit­u­a­tion, jour­nal­ists con­stant­ly feel stressed and vul­ner­a­ble: they risk being pros­e­cut­ed for alleged defama­tion or fake news.

Nev­er-end­ing reproach­es of scare mon­ger­ing and spec­u­lat­ing on the dis­ease by the state leader and oth­er offi­cials also put psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure on inde­pen­dent media and reporters.

Valiantsin Zhdanko, RFE/RL: We received no responses, even to our written enquiries.

By the epi­dem­ic, we had a work­ing rela­tion­ship with the press ser­vice of the Min­istry of Health. Yes, doc­tors had to get per­mis­sion from the Min­istry to give any inter­view or com­ment.

In fact, there is some­thing odd about a chief physi­cian or a pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine hav­ing to ask per­mis­sion from health offi­cials to talk about their work. We had to put up with it.

How­ev­er, in the new cir­cum­stances of COVID-19, this sys­tem presents a pow­er­ful bar­ri­er to the free­dom of speech. You call any hos­pi­tal, pub­lic health office, or insti­tu­tion, and get a ‘no’ every­where: they refuse to talk and refer you to the Min­istry of Health.

Its press ser­vice was great in the first weeks of the epi­dem­ic.  Spokesper­son Yulia Baradun com­mu­ni­cat­ed with reporters on her mobile phone and in her social media accounts.

That did­n’t last long. Now, every RFE/RL reporter has dozens of unan­swered calls in their phone. Well, some­times our jour­nal­ists suc­ceed in reach­ing her from some­one else’s num­ber.

To be fair, I man­aged to get through to Ms. Baradun on 29 April, and she promised to respond to a for­mal enquiry.

Well, RFE/RL has sent dozens of such enquiries since ear­ly March — both in social media and to the Min­istry’s email.  We have received zero answers.

In health care cri­sis, these issues are urgent. With dis­turb­ing reports of over­crowd­ed hos­pi­tals that start­ed to come from Viteb­sk in late March, we need­ed to ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion imme­di­ate­ly. What is the use of fig­ures on the infect­ed in late March if we receive them in 30 days?

The Min­istry of Health car­ried out week­ly press con­fer­ences, but RFE/RL jour­nal­ists are not informed about them.

We have repeat­ed­ly asked their per­mis­sion to inter­view the doc­tors who work with COVID-19 and pub­lic health experts, or to report from a hos­pi­tal. We man­aged to get the Min­istry’s per­mis­sion once, and made a great inter­view with Fio­dar Karpen­ka, direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Trans­fu­sion and Med­ical Biotech­nolo­gies. It was pub­lished on 30 March.

To our deep regret, the ghost­ing that we have been encoun­ter­ing recent­ly on the part of the Health Min­istry’s press ser­vice makes it very dif­fi­cult to deliv­er infor­ma­tion to pub­lic.

Mikalai Kazlovich, chief editor of Onliner.by: We keep stumbling on cold backs of officials: «That’s not in the rules».

Our news­room dis­cuss­es all the non­sense around access to offi­cial infor­ma­tion that some­times occurs in the Belaru­sian media space. We just can’t con­nect the dots. In the era of COVID, we are bom­bard­ed with tons of rumors in social media and Telegram chan­nels. Our email is bar­raged with let­ters.

How­ev­er, while try­ing to check all this stuff and stop the cir­cu­la­tion of fake news, our reporters keep stum­bling on cold backs of offi­cials: «It’s not in the rules». Keep­ing silence gives a green light to rumors! Hell no. No place for log­ic here.

Dur­ing the first major out­break (Viteb­sk), we tried to ver­i­fy the infor­ma­tion on the road blocks that had alleged­ly been enforced at the city. We heard from peo­ple that stu­dents were not allowed to return to col­lege, that bus­es are turned back, and much more. A clas­sic ‘pan­ic attack’ caused by the lack of infor­ma­tion. But it was impos­si­ble to get their com­ments quick­ly.  There was a sim­i­lar sto­ry a bit lat­er, when para­medics dis­closed the out­break at one of Min­sk emer­gency sta­tions. All gov­ern­ment agen­cies, includ­ing Min­sk city exec­u­tive com­mit­tee, stopped their com­mu­ni­ca­tion with reporters and decid­ed to remain silent.

No mat­ter where our reporters go, any city or town, they face the prob­lem with access to infor­ma­tion.  Beshankovichy, Sto­bt­sy, Slonim… Local cities are the main areas of silence. I can under­stand health work­ers.  Their job is to treat peo­ple. We appre­ci­ate that.  I can not under­stand health care offi­cials respon­si­ble for com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  Local ide­ol­o­gists call quit­sies, in their usu­al man­ner: the virus is not their busi­ness. Increas­ing­ly, they jump on jour­nal­ists accus­ing them of fuel­ing pan­ic.

How­ev­er, this entire pan­dem­ic sto­ry is bring­ing some­thing new on the agen­da. The rapid growth of Health Min­istry’s Telegram-chan­nel cer­tain­ly gives a boost to the devel­op­ment of such chan­nels of oth­er gov­ern­ment agen­cies .  This will facil­i­tate access to infor­ma­tion. The Press Cen­ter start­ed livestream­ing. That’s a good thing. It’s no world-shak­er: these are fun­da­men­tals of a healthy and open infor­ma­tion soci­ety that is able to defeat the pan­dem­ic (just as WHO says) much faster than a closed and intim­i­dat­ed one.

Yahor Martsinovich, chief editor of Nasha Niva: Their system of communication with media is a disaster

The Health Min­istry’s sys­tem of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the media is a dis­as­ter. Local offi­cials, or head physi­cians at hos­pi­tals do not pro­vide any infor­ma­tion: ‘Talk to the press ser­vice of the Min­istry, please.’

The Min­istry’s spokesper­son, Yulia Baradun, would sim­ply not return calls. Or, she would read mes­sages and give no answer. She might answer one in five mes­sages.

In fact, she had the same man­ner of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the media when she served as spokesper­son of the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion. I see that Baradun is not good for this job. It is biz­zare that jour­nal­ists have less prob­lems reach­ing Min­is­ter Karanik on his cell phone, risk­ing to dis­tract him at work.

The death of a woman in Viteb­sk, whose fam­i­ly was told about COVID as the death cause, is a typ­i­cal exam­ple. Baradun ignored NN reporters for hald a day. When the arti­cle came out with­out her com­men­tary, she imme­di­ate­ly answered in direct mes­sages: «She had many diag­noses, but not COVID.»

When we added her words to the arti­cle, she got angry: «I told you this pri­vate­ly.»

Ulyana Babayed, editor of Society section at TUT.BY: We have accumulated many questions, and we want experts to answer them.

At the begin­ning of the pan­dem­ic the Belaru­sian Health Min­istry was more open. For jour­nal­ists, it was a plea­sure to work with them. Then the sit­u­a­tion changed. But even in this new sit­u­a­tion, the Min­istry of Health is more open for the media than oth­er agen­cies.

Well, the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are not spoiled by access to infor­ma­tion. We have very few agen­cies will­ing to prompt­ly pro­vide infor­ma­tion, many col­leagues are used to fight­ing their way to them. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the Min­istry of Health remains one of few agen­cies that gives at least some infor­ma­tion to jour­nal­ists.

How­ev­er, for some rea­son, their most recent brief­in­gs were held in ‘no ques­tions’ for­mat. This is real­ly bad: we have accu­mu­lat­ed many ques­tions, and we want experts to answer them. Read­ers need exper­tise and analy­sis. This is what we real­ly need to stop the pan­ic and tell peo­ple some­thing more than sit­u­a­tion reports and sta­tis­tics.

But even with this stunt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the Min­istry of Health behaves bet­ter than many oth­er state agen­cies. Although WHO rec­om­men­da­tions say that dur­ing pan­dem­ic, oth­er agen­cies should demon­strate greater open­ness, too.

It would be great if oth­er state agen­cies gave us and our read­ers some clear and sim­ple tips, and told peo­ple what to expect. For exam­ple, we need to know how they will grade school stu­dents, how social ben­e­fits are to be paid, etc.

Still, we can’t get every­thing what we need from the Health Min­istry, either. We receive a lot of infor­ma­tion from read­ers, and we need to ver­i­fy it. But the Min­istry is not always eager to pro­vide us with infor­ma­tion. Then we try to ver­i­fy it in oth­er agen­cies.

Alaksei Shota, editor of Hrodna.life (Hrodna): «We had to fake cookie delivery to find out about the lockdown.»

The main prob­lem is that no one wants to take respon­si­bil­i­ty and pro­vide infor­ma­tion. Agen­cies just refer you to some­where else.  That’s hap­pen­ing every­where: in pub­lic health ser­vices or com­pa­nies with covid sus­pi­cions, for instance, at the local mar­kets.

We had to phone every man­ag­er at the region­al state com­pa­ny run­ning local mar­kets to ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion about one of the mar­kets in Hrod­na. Final­ly, we had to pre­tend to be a cook­ie deliv­ery to hear about the lock­down of one of its parts. This is not what jour­nal­ists do, but it was the only option.

Pub­lic health ser­vices are the same way: there are spe­cial phone num­bers, hot­lines, etc., but they are not ready to say any­thing beyond gen­er­al fig­ures pro­vid­ed by the Health Min­istry.

To find out infor­ma­tion from par­tic­u­lar hos­pi­tals, we have to search the social media for their staff, doc­tors, who are not too keen to talk to us. This is the only way how we can ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion from anony­mous Telegram-chan­nels. Some things turn out to be true, some not.  Almost every­thing is unof­fi­cial infor­ma­tion.

Piotr Kuzniatsou, Silnye Novosti (Homel):

In Homel, this is our usu­al mode of oper­a­tion: the author­i­ties do every­thing pos­si­ble not to share infor­ma­tion with Sil­nye Novosti. This is true not only about the cur­rent pan­dem­ic, but about every­thing. We are often encoun­tered sit­u­a­tions when an offi­cial seems to be okay about talk­ing to us but asks us to call back in some time. Call­ing back, we usu­al­ly hear ‘no com­ments’  from them. We under­stand that they have just dis­cussed this with the local ide­ol­o­gy depart­ment. We also know about the tac­it pol­i­cy not to com­mu­ni­cate with our out­let. Some­times it goes beyond com­mon sense.

In the begin­ning of the epi­dem­ic, we tried to go through offi­cial chan­nels to find out about the sit­u­a­tion in Homel region: we called our Region­al Health Author­i­ty and san­i­tary-epi­demi­o­log­i­cal agency, but no one would talk to us. Sullen silence, with ref­er­ence to the offi­cial press releas­es of the Health Min­istry.

There­fore, we have adopt­ed a dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy of work­ing with the sources who have access to infor­ma­tion and are ready to share it anony­mous­ly.

We pub­lish news about the sit­u­a­tion in the region, if we can ver­i­fy it by at least two anony­mous sources. I am proud hat now we are the only local media in the coun­try that pro­vides com­plete and reli­able cov­er­age on the spread of COVID in our area, despite the resis­tance and silence of the author­i­ties.

How­ev­er, fig­ures are ot enough. Often we have to work with per­son­al sto­ries. Obvi­ous­ly, the lack of trans­paren­cy plays a huge role in such cas­es. The author­i­ties do not only hide infor­ma­tion, but are pret­ty good at manip­u­la­tion.

Remem­ber the first non-import­ed case of infec­tion in Zhytkavichy?  Hav­ing learned about the case from our sources, we were the first ones to write about it.  Health min­is­ter Karanik con­firmed that pub­licly, but refused to com­ment on it for us or oth­er media.  How­ev­er, lat­er the diag­no­sis was ‘can­celed.’ This is pure manip­u­la­tion when they tried to hide the prob­lem but we still found out.  A real man of his word: he gives it, and he takes it back.

Anoth­er exam­ple. We know that one of Homel schools prin­ci­pal is in hos­pi­tal with coro­n­avirus. Since this is about some­one in par­tic­u­lar, we can’t just pub­lish this infor­ma­tion with­out ver­i­fy­ing it. Oth­er­wise the author­i­ties could do the same as with the woman from Zhytkavichy: just say it was not true — and how could we check if they were not lying?  We call the school, and they tell us we need to call the hos­pi­tal to find out about the diag­no­sis.

The hos­pi­tal says it’s a med­ical secret. We’ve come full cir­cle. But this is social­ly sig­nif­i­cant infor­ma­tion, as the school con­tin­ues to teach stu­dents, and uni­formed peo­ple can’t make infomed deci­sion about their behav­ior.

We have dozens of cas­es like these two. The author­i­ties are at pains to keep con­crete cas­es in secret or manip­u­late real­i­ty and try to squeeze it into their vision. Some­times they do it in hind­sight, when the fact has already been pub­lished.