April 18, 2020 - CroResp is the name of the Croatian respirator which successfully protects healthcare professionals from the coronavirus. It was designed by a group of enthusiasts gathered around the online project Pandemija.info, led by Ivor Ković, MD.

The first 50 respirators have been distributed to doctors in various cities, such as Pula, Rijeka, Zagreb, in order to provide protection to as many healthcare professionals in Croatia as possible. The association “Pomaganje je uvijek in” (eng: Helping is always IN) launched a large crowdfunding campaign.

„The global demand for respirators is growing, and Croatia does not have time to import them. We have designed a respirator that protects the entire face, and most importantly - eyes and airways, aiming to help to protect the healthcare professionals in the Croatian public healthcare system. The respirator consists of a diving mask, an adapter and a virus filter. This solution provides certainly better protection than the surgical masks combined with protective visors”, said Ivor Ković, an emergency medicine specialist, based in London for the last seven years.  As he is currently located in Podgorač near Našice, he decided to invest his knowledge, experience and goodwill in the protection of the Croatian healthcare professionals.

The innovation team is continuously exchanging their findings with people who are developing related solutions all around the world.

The CroResp crowdfunding campaign needs to raise 150 000 HRK (approx. 20 000 EUR). This would create the opportunity to assemble about 1000 respirators. Parts of the respirator that must be purchased or manufactured, cost about 150 HRK per device. Persons assembling the respirators do not charge their services. The campaign will last six more days. The respirators will be free of charge for the healthcare professionals, and the manufacture and distribution costs will be transparently published on the website Pandemija.info.

Additional information: https://pandemija.info/ & Campaign

Follow TCN's live updates about the corona crisis in Croatia

April 18, 2020 - From April 21-26, experience the Camino Krk route through your computers, mobile phones, or tablets thanks to a virtual tour provided by the Krk Tourist Board.

HRTurizam writes that Camino Krk is a great new tourist product as well as a motive for arrivals in the pre and post-season. It is an event commemorating the Croatian Camino Route following the medieval pilgrimage routes on the island of Krk. The Camino Krk themed route also joined the European network of St. James pilgrimage routes, and created the preconditions for the development of pilgrimage and religious tourism on the island.

However, since we are all in isolation at the moment and as tourism has literally stopped, the Tourist Board decided to organize a virtual Camino Krk that brings the experience of the Way of St. James directly to everyone's homes.

Although it is difficult to connect the island of Krk with the famous 'Camino' pilgrimage at first, it is further proof that there are hundreds of phenomenal and authentic stories in Croatia that we need to put together, brand and tell. It is this content that we are chronically missing.

So, how does the island connect with the Camino de Santiago or Way of St. James?

The Camino de Santiago or Way of St. James is a network of pilgrimage routes leading to the Spanish Sanctuary of Santiago de Compostela - the last resting place of St. James the Apostle, patron saint of pilgrims and travelers. From northern Norway and the Baltic countries, signposts lead to Santiago de Compostela, with over 320,000 people traversing the Franco-Spanish section of the route as long as 800 kilometers each year. In 1987, the Council of Europe awarded Camino the longest street in Europe, while in 1993, UNESCO declared its Spanish and French parts a World Heritage Site. Although the network of Camino routes stretches across Europe, Croatia was almost the only European country that, despite its rich pilgrimage tradition, until recently had no route to Santiago.

In Croatia since 1203, the Fraternity of St. James organized pilgrims who then walked from Croatia to Santiago de Compostela and back. The present-day Brotherhood of St. James, based in Samobor, inherits this tradition. They are a member of the St. James in Santiago de Compostela, the central institution that brings together the associations and fraternities of St. James from all over the world. They publish the Croatian pilgrimage passport - Credentil, officially accepted as a pilgrimage certificate with which in Santiago de Compostela, a diploma of completed pilgrimage is obtained.

Last October, at the initiative of the Krk Tourist Board and the Brotherhood of St. James, medieval Krk pilgrim routes were marked as a Croatian contribution to the European network of pilgrim routes of St. James.

Camino Week on Krk is a project that lays the foundations for the development of pilgrimage and religious tourism in order to extend the season and develop tourism following the principles of sustainability and preservation of tradition.

As the first in a series of Croatian Camino routes, Krk proved to be an ideal choice. The island, which, due to its natural and material treasure, rightly prides itself on the epitome of Croatian history and culture, is an ideal backdrop for a spiritual journey, thanks to its old castles and churches, abandoned villages, small medieval towns and beautiful beaches. It is not disingenuous to say that the interior of the island gives the impression of an outdoor cathedral.

"The situation that has spread around the entire world has made it impossible for much of the planned activities, including the holding of the second Camino Week. We have therefore decided to provide the interested audience with a part of the experience with the help of digital tools and hold a Virtual Camino Krk Week, which will be available on our Facebook pages. At the moment, most everyone is spending time in isolation and quarantine, and digital media in the true sense has become their only window into the world. Perhaps this particular story from the island of Krk will embellish our days," said Natasa Jurina, director of the Krk Tourist Board.

Camino Krk is a circular route Krk - Porat - Omisalj - Dobrinj - Vrbnik - Baska - Kornic which covers the whole island. It is about 107 kilometers long and is advised to walk through using the six-day program. Trails are marked between the cities listed, and one is passed each day. Camino Krk also has its own special sign, which with the recognizable symbol Camino bears the Glagolitic script - the oldest Slavic script specific to Croatia and Krk.

The first Camino Week in Krk was held in October 2019, and at the end of April, the second guided tour of the Camino Krk route was to take place.

As this is not possible now, the Krk Tourist Board decided to approach part of this experience virtually. Over the course of six days, you can experience part of the Camino experience virtually through:

- multimedia story for every single day through pictures, video, voice-over, music
- an online photo exhibition with Camino de Santiago with different subjects
- interactive description of daily routes
- attractions and descriptions of individual places, natural and cultural sights along the route
- testimonies of pilgrims who passed Camino Krk
- the messages and thoughts of the day about what can be learned on the Camino

The tour will also include e-stamps, or an e-passport for pilgrims, and at the end of the six-day virtual tour, all "travelers" will receive an e-Composel, while the original Compostela will be able to be picked up at the Krk Tourist Board live when possible.

"This is a new experience for all of us, we are doing it for the first time, and we apologize in advance if the production is not flawless due to the short preparation time. However, we have a strong desire to provide you with some of the experience you have been deprived of because of the current situation and we want to do the best we can. Join us and be part of the first virtual Camino Krk adventure. Thank you to everyone who will join and contribute," concludes Natasa Jurina.

The project was designed by the Krk Tourist Board and the digital marketing agency Smartingo.com, and the great news is that all tourist boards on the island of Krk have joined the project: Tourist Board of Omišalj and Njivice, Tourist Board of Malinska, Tourist Board of Baška, Tourist Board of Dobrinj, Tourist Board of Punat, and the Krk Island Tourist Board.

From April 21-26, experience Camino Krk through your computers, mobile phones or tablets on the City of History and Culture's Facebook page.

Find out more about the whole project HERE

To read more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

April. 18, 2020 - HNK Hajduk has agreed with all first-team players to reduce wages as the competition is stalled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Split club reports that first-team players have accepted Hajduk's proposal to receive 40 percent of the contracted earnings over the next six months, the additional 40 percent will be deferred for six months and the remaining 20 percent will be permanently waived. Furthermore, the Club offered its players the chance to automatically reinstate the contracts from the time before the pandemic, in full, in the event they place in a European competition.

"HNK Hajduk thanks the players for their understanding and cooperation in reaching an agreement on reducing salaries in times of crisis in order to ensure the financial stability and sustainability of the Club in the long run. In such an atmosphere of mutual respect and unity within the Club, we are sure that the desired sports result will not be missed. We completed the contract process in record time. The management and part of the higher-income working community will also share the fate of the players," said Hajduk president Marin Brbić.

"We believe that we have negotiated with the players as responsibly and correctly as possible. We did not rush to make a decision and neither did it unilaterally, but through an agreement with the players, we wanted to achieve synergy. We decided not to communicate the draft agreement publicly, allowing players to peacefully consider all the circumstances affecting the Club and football in Croatia and to make their decision accordingly. We thank them once again for the demonstrated team spirit and solidarity they have shown in this situation where, in addition to donated funds in our humanitarian actions, they have once again shown great responsibility to our Club and the entire community," added the sports director Ivan Kepčija.

Led by captain Mijo Caktaš, Hajduk players showed exceptional understanding and solidarity in the agreement.

"This is a situation that happens once in history and in which we all have to bear our burden to keep the Club stable. I am especially pleased that the team showed their understanding of the new circumstances after the first meeting, and there was really no doubt that we players should stand in solidarity with the Club at the moment when football activities around the world stopped. The conversations were very fair, we all showed a great community together, and I would like to thank all the teammates for that once again. I believe that we as a team and Hajduk as a Club will come out stronger from all this," said Caktaš after the agreement with the players was officially signed.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

April 17, 2020 — Want to insult someone in Croatia with limited legal repercussions? Win an election.

If one average Croat turns to another and shouts, "I f*ck your mother!", the recipient could prosecute for "defamation" and "insult". If an elected official, however, declares a colleague a "piece of sh*t" while both are at work, the nation's top court considers it political expression.

An elected official cursing out a colleague on the premises of the representative body does not constitute defamation or insult, the Croatian Constitutional Court decided, according to Jutarnji List.

The decision muddies the already-murky interpretation of Croatia's defamation laws. Up until now, insulting speech and cursing opened the door to legal proceedings, though the outcomes weren't always guaranteed. The laws are often used by politicians to silence unfriendly media coverage, or ornery citizens with thin skin and cash to burn on legal expenses.

The decision opens the floodgates to some of the Croatian language's best expressions. Politicians can now freely deploy these terms during legislative sessions and within government buildings.

The court's decision offers two legal hurdles to provide one with the freedom to curse without legal consequences: the speaker and recipient must both be elected officials, and the four-letter words must be uttered, shouted or angrily hissed while within a government building.

That means "I f*ck your mother!", "You piece of sh*t!" and “And I really do f*ck your mother!” all now belong in Croatia's political vernacular, but can still get one in trouble out on the street.

The Constitutional Court's decision came thanks to a complaint filed by the Independent Councilor of Korcula City Council, Tin Andrijic. In 2013, at a session of the City Council, he verbally attacked the director of the Korčula Sports Facilities Dalibor Antunović. Knowing that everything was transmitted by Radio Korcula, the councilman told Antunović, "I f*ck your mother!", "You piece of sh*t!" and “And I really do f*ck your mother!” among other things.

Antunović sued Andrijić for defaming his honor and reputation, a widely-interpreted legal premise that's a catchall for any speech or expression which makes a person feel like a "piece of sh*t", regardless of whether or not they are one.

Other western defamation and libel laws require a second hurdle: the speaker's intent to defame or hurt must be proven. Croatia's does not. The person calling someone a "piece of sh*t" is wrong simply if it makes the alleged "piece of sh*t" feel bad. Even their behavior may merit someone telling them "I f*ck your mother!"

The Dubrovnik Municipal Court ruled Councilman Andrijić committed the offense of insult and fined him HRK 5,000. In the proceedings, Andrijić invoked the immunity guaranteed by the Law on Local and Regional Self-Government, according to which a member of the representative body cannot be prosecuted or held accountable in any other way for voting, statements or opinions and opinions expressed at sessions of the representative body. The court dismissed his argument. 

"It was not a statement or an opinion or a position at a sitting of a representative body within the meaning of the said legal provision, but a mere curse and a pure insult, and such words have no purpose or meaning other than to offend and disparage," it wrote in its decision.

The Constitutional Court disagrees. It stated lower courts violated the constitutional right to a fair trial, and referred to a precedent set in a similar case, which said legislative immunity included such situations. The Constitutional Court's decision was not unanimous, however. Three constitutional judges opposed it and wrote separate opinions. Among them are two former SDP members, Josip Leko and Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic, and Judge Andrej Abramovic.

So if any citizens want to insult each other with full legal immunity, consider running for office.

ZAGREB, April 17, 2020 - The head of the national civil protection authority, Interior Minister Davor Božinović, said on Friday the epidemiological measures in force against COVID-19 would be extended but that the authority would "embark on easing" them "thoughtfully and cautiously."

"Most epidemiological measures expire on Sunday at midnight and we will certainly extend most of those measures. But we are definitely moving towards the stage in which some measures will be eased," he said at the daily press briefing.

Božinović said Prime Minister Andrej Plenković had asked all ministers to prepare for today a review of important economic activities, after which epidemiologists would give recommendations on how to organise compliance with the measures.

"Any easing carries a certain risk. This virus has shown that it can spread fast in uncontrolled conditions. The road map is clear. We haven't given specific dates much in advance. But I think our approach, with today's (coronavirus-related) numbers, has shown its justification," said Božinović.

More coronavirus news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

April the 18th, 2020 - Just what has the coronavirus pandemic taught this leading (yet ever curious) Croatian scientist so far? Igor Rudan lists ten things he's learned since the epidemic began.

1) It taught me that people don’t have the faintest awareness of just how much of a dangerous disease flu actually is.

Influenza must have been largely responsible for the horrendous pestilence among American Indians, Aztecs, Mayans, Incas and Australian Aborigines when they came into contact with the first European colonists. The "Russian flu" ravaged the years 1889 to 1890, had the antigenic composition of H3N8 (or H2N2) and killed one million people at a time when the world's total population was only about one and a half billion people in total. 

Then, "Spanish flu" was the worst flu of all. It struck an exhausted, hungry, and deployed humanity at the end of World War I, between 1918 and 1920, and had the H1N1 antigenic composition. It probably killed up to 75 million people at the time when the total population was 1.8 billion, and had a significantly higher mortality rate in the community than this new coronavirus has. Asian flu then plagued the world from 1957 to 1958. It had the antigenic composition of H2N2, killing more than 3 million people directly and indirectly at a time when there were 2.9 billion people on Earth. Finally, Hong Kong flu toured the world from 1968 to 1969, had H3N2 antigens, killing more than three million people directly and indirectly at a time when there were 3.5 billion people on Earth in total. Today, even with the vaccination of the most vulnerable among us who might die, the flu continues to kill 250,000 to 650,000 people a year. It does so to a lesser extent directly (by causing respiratory symptoms) and more indirectly (by the exacerbation of pre-existing diseases in the elderly).

In Italy, according to properly conducted research and calculations, which took into account both direct and indirect deaths, influenza has been killing 7,000 to 24,000 people a year over the last decade. In the USA, the flu takes at least 20,000 to 50,000 lives each year. In both cases, these figures are valid even with the vaccination of vulnerable groups of people. If those people were not vaccinated, that figure would be significantly higher.

2. I have learned that people are quick to lose their fear of everything that is well known to them, even if they shouldn’t, but they have an overwhelming fear of everything that is completely unknown to them.

It's difficult to explain just how people have been able to "get used" to flu mortality to such an extent that they don't even bother to vaccinate against it when they can, but now every coronavirus case in every country is being reported as if it’s the "black plague" once again. Influenza is predominantly a serious illness, which pins every infected person to their beds for a few days. COVID-19, caused by the new coronavirus, is a disease that has a wide range of symptoms. Globally, 90 percent of those infected, of which there are currently 60,000 active cases, are classified as having "mild symptoms" and only 10 percent of them are classed as "severe or critical". However, the intense focus of some media on the "tropism" of coronavirus for the pulmonary alveoli, and not just the bronchi, results in a very serious clinical picture in the most severe cases of COVID-19, as well as the fact that COVID-19 causes lung problems in all patients, whereas that occurs with only maybe one-fifth of those infected with the flu. This, combined with only the most severe cases, doesn’t provide the correct impression of how relatively dangerous these two diseases actually are.

As I said, for an epidemiologist, the most dangerous one is the one which kills more people. For now, that’s still the flu, even with vaccinations. The flu has probably killed an average of about 300,000 people or more over the past few years, regardless of vaccination. This new disease, COVID-19, caused 5,000 deaths after three months of spread. There will be significantly more deaths when the pandemic spreads across the globe, but for now, the question remains whether or not it will reach flu’s level. But I see that these days, because of the huge fear of something unknown, many people in Croatia can't see, hear, and somehow just can't understand that.

3) I have learned that even the most reasonable and intelligent people will easily mix up apples and cherries when they don’t have enough experience in a particular field.

The current estimates of the mortality rate from coronavirus represent a basket of apples and cherries mixed together. When coronavirus sweeps through hospitals, among people who are already unwell and who have issues, it can kill one person out of every 20, maybe out of every 10 or even out of every 5, depending on how many cases of infection in the hospital ward occurred in people who were already suffering from serious illnesses and how old they were. But when the disease is spread among a healthy population, it kills about one person in every hundred or two hundred, and maybe even less than that.

At the beginning of an epidemic, most of the people who die will have been infected in hospitals, so, the death rate among those infected will seem very high. Over time, the vast majority of cases will come from the community, so the death rate will begin to approach this lower value, for example; one death in every one hundred or two hundred infected people. In doing so, the overall potential of the virus to do harm to the entire nation depends significantly more on its spread in the community than it does on it killing people in hospitals. Therefore, the current death rates at the beginning of a pandemic should not be mapped to entire nations and their populations. But even that, it seems, isn’t an easy thing to explain these days.

4) I have learned that, thanks to a Croatian invention - quarantine - humanity is much safer from biological dangers today.

When the coronavirus epidemic erupted in Wuhan and met the local population, which was quite unprepared, on January the 16th, 2020, they had 500 newly confirmed cases in their hospitals, which meant that there were at least several times more real cases out there in the community. Then, on January the 19th, nearly 1,000 newly confirmed cases were recorded. Then, on January the 21st, another 1,500 newly confirmed cases were recorded in hospitals. Well, on January the 23rd, 2,700 new cases were confirmed in just one day, and they had cases in just about every one of their over 30 provinces. The number of deaths in those days had already begun to be measured in four digits. The epidemic had totally 

escaped control. And then a plan was adopted, which was implemented in a totalitarian way. On January the 23rd, 2020, people were barred from entering or exiting Wuhan, with its 11 million inhabitants. All of the people already in Wuhan, however, were ordered to shut themselves away into their apartments and not leave them at all. Everything in the city was closed. One day later, on January the 24th, 2020, the number of new cases confirmed in hospitals climbed up by a further 2,750, with the government ordering another 15 Chinese cities to be quarantined. These were truly draconian measures, which would be very difficult to implement in countries that lack a collectivist mentality.

The decisions of January the 23rd and 24th, 2020, in China, are unprecedented in human history. Tens of millions of people were quarantined. That’s something like the whole of Eastern Europe being placed in quarantine. And not only to the rest of the world, but also to each other, from each other. Everyone was in their apartments, just waiting. But it worked. They reduced the daily numbers of newly infected people and deaths down to double digits, and the total death toll in China is now just over 3,000. Given the size of the population, this would correspond to about 8 deaths throughout the whole of Croatia. The ability to rigorously quarantine tens of millions of people in order to curb epidemics that could be even more dangerous than this one is the most important new piece of knowledge that this new coronavirus has given me so far.

5) It taught me that we’re potentially in an important historical moment after which the East will become more important than the West.

We’re currently living in an interesting period that may be touched on in the history books in the future. It seems to me that the full range of challenges awaiting humanity in the 21st century, such as climate change and climate refugees, food and water availability, the mortality of the poorest among us, the pollution of the oceans, renewable energy, demographic growth and an aging population, health care and inequality, could require some form of clear plan ‘’from above’’, as well as community action that will have the characteristics of inclusiveness and solidarity, and won’t just be simply solved by free-market mechanisms.

Fires in the Amazon, Alaska, Siberia, and Australia, and now temperature in the South Pole that have never been higher, confirm the justification for climate change concerns to a certain extent. The US also received an invitation from top executives from the largest companies and the Financial Times to reform such "rentier" capitalism, and companies began to be asked to provide greater care in fulfilling their social roles, as additional motivation alongside making a profit only. It was a vocal call from the very heart of capitalism to reform from within, which didn’t question the justification of capitalism as the best system out there at all, but merely sought its adaptation to these new historical circumstances. The last time I was in the US, last autumn, more than 40 percent of the US population declared themselves in favour of "some form of socialism." These were unimaginably high figures for that country.

This shift of the electorate to the left in the US itself has apparently led the business leaders themselves to rethink everything and start thinking about reform. It is now opening up to the possibility that this unexpected pandemic may also become part of these continuing stories of the lack of existing models in dealing with global crises. Pandemics are an excellent example of situations where the interest of the entire community must be outweighed by the interests and personal freedoms of each individual. To the Chinese, this is intuitive, because they still live under the rule of the Communist Party to this very day.

China has succeeded, and now the US needs to show how it will tackle the epidemic, but President Trump is hesitant. He doesn't like the idea of ​​quarantine because he knows how painful it will be for the economy. In addition, such a move will mainly save older people, which is a cultural norm in China and is never called into question. But because of the recession, it will harm the health of middle-aged and younger people in later years. A coronavirus crisis now awaits the US, after China has already shown what its comprehensive health system knows and can do.

Placing the personal freedoms of their citizens above the interests of the entire community in the US could have major unintended consequences, and the same applies to the UK. I hope it will not be so, because I don’t want any unnecessary contagion anywhere in the world. But if some level of reason in those in power in the US and its federal states which oversee the health systems there doesn’t occur, and if they think that curbing the pandemic is an ideological issue for their politicians, economists and sociologists, and not for scientists and doctors, there could be an unwanted embarrassment of the US on the international stage on the horizon in the next few weeks, with more lasting consequences for the new dominance of the East over the West.

6) I learned what an ‘’Infodemia’’ is.

Even back during the earliest stage of this pandemic, I realised that the huge differences in how the media and the scientific community function would become an extremely important part of this story. Specifically, in the early days of the spread of the contagion in China, I was being contacted by reporters, who made every effort to cover the subject. They wanted to get experts' estimates of possible further developments, but failed to extract nearly enough information to satisfy the public's interest in the topic from them. As I’m among the few Croatian scientists to have succeeded in accumulating experience both in the scientific community and in the media, I would explain to the press that the further development of this epidemic depends on at least thirty parameters that all need to be very well and thoroughly understood, and we don’t currently understand three or four of them well enough, let alone all thirty of them.

No scientist or expert will risk his or her reputation at such an early stage, rushing in and saying that there will be hundreds of millions of deaths, and in the end, thousands end up being killed, or worse - estimate that there will not be many deaths, and eventually there ends up being many more than expected. That's why, at such an early stage, we have those in charge of slowly informing us of everything, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the American Centre for Disease Control (CDC), and the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet and JAMA. It is best to consider any other information rather unreliable until proven otherwise. Furthermore, as the situation develops, even the estimates of these reliable sources can be expected to alter several times, as we’re faced with a new and dynamic event which is difficult to predict.

It was then that I first realised that this pandemic would cause an information chaos, because in order to truly understand what its course and development all depend on, several very thick medical books need to be read and understood. However, all this knowledge cannot be summarised or transmitted to the public in the form of short media articles today. They were written to stay interesting for a mere 24 hours after publication, and often not even for that long. I understood that the public would be bombarded day by day with information about a pandemic that would often be insufficient in terms of its accuracy, incompletely explained, taken out of a much wider context that had been ignored, presented in the same way, though some bits of that information might be significantly more important and other bits of it might be entirely irrelevant in terms of understanding what is going on, which will all contribute to people's state of confusion and concern.

So, we end up with an "infodemia" - an epidemic of information that precedes the development of the real epidemic. I believe that once the spread of this disease is over, infodemia, its causes, and its effects and indeed its consequences, will be the subject of interest for many scientists. But interestingly, this is no novelty, because even in the Middle Ages, information about the spread of terrible epidemics was spread from village to village, and because of that, fugitives from the affected villages created panic by spreading stories about what was to come.

This particularly bothered me because I’d already developed some sort of PTSD from everything that went on about the counterfeit research on the relationship between autism and vaccines. I have already described how the media at the time was very enthusiastic at first transmitting it as disruptive information that would attract a lot of attention, although the entire scientific community reacted to it with enormous skepticism. The media, then, in misunderstanding the details of the scientific basis of the study, portrayed the denouncement of the fraudsters by the rest of the scientific community as a public debate, giving equal media coverage to the statements of all scientists who denied this obvious, malicious error with 99.999% probability, as well as to those who defended their forged study. Thus, the media then, in misunderstanding the details of the scientific background, presented the public with scientific evidence and clearly rejected the wrong hypothesis as an unresolved, public debate in which both parties have equal credibility. That "public altercation" attracted much more attention, with the result being more than a third of parents taking the side of the deceivers and vacillation having dropped from about 95 percent to about 60 percent. Because of all of this, I was worried that a lack of understanding of all the scientific details of this pandemic would cause some similar damage.

7) I have learned that topics in the media are much more determined by the public's hunger for information than they are by the media itself imposing topics on the general public.

I always thought that the media had the greatest power to impose topics on the public. But on this occasion, I could see that the topics actually impose themselves, depending on how much "hunger" the public has for them. And vice versa - if this hunger doesn’t exist, one can try as much as one wants, but the topic cannot be easily imposed on the public. For example, I could do as much as I wanted, but I could hardly write a column or give an interview that would be read by more than ten thousand people on the Vecernji list portal.

But last Tuesday, whatever I wrote about coronavirus, even without much effort involved, was being read by over one hundred thousand people.

So, there is an objective "hunger" for the public for topics, as well as their saturation, which changes literally hour by hour. I have learned that it is up to the media to decide for themselves how far they will go in exploiting this objective "hunger" of the public, and how much restraint they are to have towards that exploitation, and how much criticality they should show. They differ from each other here, too, so that their role cannot be generalised to all media.

In this situation, we need a quality reconciliation between the hunger of the public, the interests of the media themselves and the functioning of the scientific community. What is most interesting to me is the incomprehensibility of the question of how this "hunger" is created, a collective emotion that then becomes easy to sway - is it with factual data, dramatic decisions by the authorities and institutions (quarantines), or the stories, images and films that began to spread from Wuhan, just as it was back in the Middle Ages? It seems that we all have some deep emotions embedded in us, related to fear, death, and the various forms and types of love that events like this can inspire. Jo Nesbo wrote beautifully in the foreword of one of his books that publishers at the very beginning of his career told him to write either about great love or about murder, because nothing else could be sold to a large number of people, so it wasn’t worth even writing about.

8) It taught me that in the heat of an infodemia, people without enough knowledge will undermine potentially useful health education attempts, in both a conscious and an unconscious way.

In talking to a few colleagues who have the scientific authority to educate the public during these days of crisis, I’ve noticed that there are an incredible number of examples where the under-informed, either consciously or unconsciously, twist what we say and write, they misinterpret, and even maliciously interpret it, then pass it on, and hope that over time we will also turn out to not know what we’re talking about.

We note that our health-education efforts may, therefore, cause harm to us and others more than they provide use. The biggest concern is when our texts are broadcast with uncritical or even completely incorrect large titles and subheadings, which have nothing to do with what was actually said.

To reduce this mutational effect of "infodemia" on useful messages, I renewed my collaboration with Vecernji list for the fourth time, and will comment further on this pandemic only for them, and share their article here, to somehow ensure that the information I convey doesn’t mutate spontaneously and cause the opposite of the desired effect.

9) It taught me what ‘’moral panic’’ is.

"Moral panic" is a sociological and anthropological term used by British scientist Young, who dealt with youth addiction, in the context of the overreaction of the media, the police and the public to the deviance of young people's behaviour. Today, it signifies any social situation where, on a case-by-case basis or sensationally interpreted statistics, one is convinced that the community and its value system are at great risk. Today's speed of information sharing is leading to constant "waves of moral panic" around one topic at a time. Because of this, even though people have never lived with less risk and more resources, many feel permanently scared and anxious.

In the first phase of moral panic, something like the new coronavirus is defined as a major threat to the community. In the second phase, the news confirms this, but bases that largely on incorrectly presented statistics or individual cases taken from a much wider context. In the third phase, public concern is continually raised to levels of inappropriate and exaggerated behaviours that don’t correspond to reality. In the fourth stage, the reaction of those in power who are trying to restrain fear and panic, then strikes against the threat. Then democracy is suspended, and in the interest of "safeguarding security" everything becomes permissible. Finally, in the fifth stage, the "moral panic" either disappears in the same way it appeared, or results in major social changes, which are mostly unwanted and radical.

Unfortunately, in this situation with the coronavirus, I had the opportunity to witness different stages of the development of "moral panic". In addition to the problems of distorting and changing the specific statements of our foreign experts, or misinterpreting our statements due to inadvertent reading, I’ve noticed a third problem. It began to seem to me that more and more people wanted the experts to be wrong in their forecasts. It seems to me that there are indeed people in Croatia who would be happier if at least a few of their fellow citizens died during the first two or three weeks of the epidemic than for us, the Croatian scientists abroad, to be right about this problem. I didn't even know how to classify this type of behaviour. But then, in his column, Croatian writer Miljenko Jergovic explained that there was a name for such public defeats of common sense, called "moral panic". Mr. Jergovic, who, like Ivan Djikic and I, is not a member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, explained moral panic in a perfectly clear way to me, as I had tried to explain COVID-19 to him in my article the day before. He wrote the following:

"What happens when those who are incomparably more competent about COVID-19 come forward, even if they themselves aren’t all that well acquainted with it? In the Croatian case, these people are Alemka Markotic, Ivan Djikic, Igor Rudan. We don’t believe her, much like a death-fearing hypochondriac doesn’t believe the doctor when he provides him with a moderately favourable assessment of his condition. And as for Djikic and Rudan, who are trying to intervene in a society of moral panic, are either viewed as equal interlocutors in the murmur of ignorant people, or even suspected as some hired alternatives. Instead of bringing about calm, their words seem to provoke anger and contempt. Why? Because in the midst of moral panic, a person is more likely to believe less believable, even idiotic news, lies and misinformation, which, if true and probable, would testify to the threat against him, than to news that would competently confirm that he may indeed have been threatened, but not to such an extent.’’

10) I learned that we must not turn away from health education, even when its very sense is called into question in this sort of collective psychosis.

When I’d already thought more than once that it made no sense to attempt to write about the pandemic in order to clarify the events to as many people as possible and their health education, some dear colleagues reminded me that we were all students of the great prof. Dr. Andrija Štampar. He wrote down 10 principles we all needed to know by heart, as they released the world from the fear of infectious diseases back during the second half of the 20th century. They still remain the cornerstone of public health and social medicine today, and if the late academic was at least still with us in this situation, he would have seen that they are just as relevant now as they were 50 years ago when he left them for us:

1. Informing people is more important than the law.

2. The most important thing is to prepare the ground and the right understanding about health issues in one area.

3. The issue of public health and the work to improve it should be addressed by everyone, without distinction.

4. Social therapy is more important than individual therapy.

5. The doctor must not be economically dependent on the patient.

6. No distinction should be made between the economically strong and the economically weak (egalitarianism).

7. In a healthcare organisation, the doctor should look for the patient, not the other way around, to take care of all those who need protection.

8. The doctor should be the people’s teacher.

9. The issue of public health is of greater economic significance than it is of humanitarian significance.

10. The main place of medical activity is where people live, and not the practice.

This text was written by Professor Igor Rudan, was first published on Vecernji list, and has been translated into English by Lauren Simmonds

For more on coronavirus in Croatia, follow our dedicated section. For more from Professor Igor Rudan, follow his author page here, his LinkedIn here, his Facebook page here, his Twitter here, and his Medium profile here.

April 17, 2020 — The social distancing rules and "stay at home" measures may cause odd behavior. Like Dalmatians committing the unthinkable sin of giving free fish to the world's beloved aquatic freeloaders: dolphins.

The official Facebook page for Milna, on the island of Brač, shows the warm-blooded scavengers of the deep blue sea blissfully scrounging on trash fish straight out of a local's hands. (One bite came a bit too close.) After a bit of caution, they began enjoying a bit of a free meal, even taking turns at one point.

Old fishermen on the Adriatic once considered dolphins the bane of their existence, mistakenly thinking the mammals would eat fish out of their nets. This sparked an unfortunate backlash which has slowed significantly over the last decade.

But that doesn't mean dolphins won't go belly-up for some free fish!

ZAGREB, April 17, 2020 - The Croatian Employers Association (HUP) has sent a proposal to the Finance Ministry to start taxing, in line with the relevant EU directive, cross-border online commerce and use the tax revenue to help the Croatian commercial sector, where, it says, more than 300,000 jobs are at risk directly or indirectly.

HUP claims that the growth on e-commerce during the current coronavirus pandemic has put domestic retailers in an unequal position in relation to foreign online retailers because a vast majority of them use a Croatian internet domain and create a false impression among Croatian buyers that they are buying in a Croatian store.

The bills do not show the amount of VAT, which means that VAT is actually paid in some other country, HUP says, calling for strict control and collection of taxes on cross-border shipments.

"Fair and transparent taxation of online trade is, just as the taxation of 'classic' trade, an opportunity for the state to earn more than a billion kuna from e-commerce tax alone. The biggest internet stores are registered in tax havens like Romania, the Czech Republic or Cyprus and it is solely due to omissions by our tax authority that they do not pay VAT in Croatia, which has one of the highest VAT rates in Europe," said Denis Čupić of HUP.

He proposed that revenue from e-commerce taxation be used to set up a fund to help in the recovery of the domestic retail sector, which, he says, is on the brink of bankruptcy due to restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus epidemic.

Čupić also calls for investigating cases of abuse in the customs-free shipment of parcels of small value to Croatia, noting that that way global e-giants place goods of higher value on the Croatian market, avoiding local taxes which are paid by everyone else in the national retail sector.

More business news can be found in the dedicated section.