March 31, 2020 - Eminent Croatian scientist Igor Rudan has written some of the most authoritative and clear texts on COVID-19. Now watch him explain Survival, the Story of Global Health. Science IS sexy.
I wrote an article a couple of days ago in which I said that I was not in the habit of writing an article praising people I had never met, which is true.
And yet, here I go again... Maybe it is the cabin fever starting to show.
Croatia has many heroes at the moment, from the dedicated health workers on the corona frontline to those in power with the huge responsibility to keep Croatia safe and navigate the most unpredictable waters that the world has known in my lifetime.
And these heroes and heroines are more than rising to the task, and I think them sincerely on behalf of me and my family (and, I suspect, the rest of the country). We have already written about new Health Minister Vii Beros and the legendica that is Almenka Markotic.
And so we come to our third hero of the hour, whom I have also never met. Indeed - please don't tell him, as I am a little embarrassed to admit it - I had no idea who he was until my colleague Lauren starting translating and publishing his amazing texts about corona on TCN.
(Just like Alemka and Vili, Igor Rudan also makes the list of the current top 10 most positive people in Croatia)
And when I read the articles on corona by Igor Rudan, I felt even more embarrassed. They were the most detailed, clear and factual articles I have read since this madness began. His latest answers one of the questions that maybe people are asking, but nobody seems to know the answer to - but Igor does.
Igor Rudan Explains What Went So Wrong With COVID-19 in Italy
You can read more of Lauren's translations of Igor's corona masterpieces here.
I decided to seek him out for a TCN interview and was surprised to find that we were friends on Facebook. I have currently 3,546 FB friends, and I know about 200 of them, but many Croatians seem to like to connect with a fat Irishman living in and writing about their country, which is great.
As we were friends on FB, that made the communication easier, so I sent him a link to one of Lauren's translations and said we would be happy to do more, so that his wisdom could go beyond the confines of the svjetski jezik, hrvatski, and into English.
Not only did Igor agree, but he was happy to add his superstar name to the TCN team of writers, thereby tripling the TCN IQ in one fell swoop, insisting that the texts appear in English first on TCN, and then he hired Lauren to translate lots of his other work.
It is a marriage made in heaven, and I have not seen young Simmonds as enthused about translating since we first met 4 years ago.
An extremely funny man from our messaging exchanges, he is the person I am most looking forward to meeting after all this madness is over (as well as holding Mate Rimac to his promise to let me drive him around in his $2.75 million C2 electric wonder car - I have promised to drive slower than Richard Hammond).
And then THIS!
My wonderful wife sent me a link to a YouTube video yesterday - Igor Rudan presenting Survival, the Story of Global Health.
It is sensational! Beautifully filmed, calmly and intelligently presented by Igor himself, mostly shot in Croatia, as well as Edinburgh, where he is a Prof at the university.
We called the kids to watch it together as a family. Watching their initial lack of enthusiasm turn to fascination during the first episode was a joy.
For those of you watching reruns of NCIS and Law and Order, THIS is for you. Check out the full series below.
And the final bit of reassuring news for this article. Igor messaged us last night to apologise for a short delay in sending us an article update. He explained that he had spent most of the day advising the Croatian authorities on the response to corona.
Doesn't it make you feel just a little safer knowing that those tasked with keeping us safe are taking advice from the very best?
