New Iron Curtain

Foreign newspapers were among the items that weren't allowed across the border on the first day on Mon. of the self-imposed "containment" of the Czech Republic. It was merely a delivery glitch that was corrected by yesterday, but it was anecdotal evidence that a new Iron Curtain is being built between the countries of Central Europe and the West. If the original barbed wire and no-man's land had never been eliminated, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles would be having a much easier time now preventing an epidemic, and this separatistic mindset is still in place. Andrej Babiš shows contempt for Western politicians who think that the solution to the coronavirus problem is to throw money at it. When it comes time to address the financial costs, the Czechs and their CE neighbors will also be better equipped from a debt/GDP standpoint than most Western countries. The virus, it seems, will be a minor triumph for the illiberalism of those behind the new Iron Curtain.