"I'm going into retirement; Monday, 26 September is officially my last day at work. I have mixed feelings about it. I'm not sad, far from it, I'm actually looking forward. However, retiring won't make me suddenly wither away. I'm capable of offering more, but I have no intention of working out of pure enthusiasm, but for a fee."
This is what Dr Predrag Kon (67), epidemiologist and chief physician, said in his interview with Kurir. A former member of the Task Force, set up to fight Covid, and a reserve medical corps lieutenant colonel, he will be an advisor at the Belgrade Public Health Institute for three more days.
Was this your or someone else's decision, given that you met the conditions for requirement a long time ago and the Minister of Health wants pensioners to go home?
"I adhere to the decisions of the Government, and if they come from the Minister of Health, then I believe I shouldn't be in the way at any rate. The fact that this has become public, that lists are being made with names of those who should retire, was for me a reason to accept such a decision."
Did someone say to you that you needed to pack your things?
"Someone certainly suggested it to me, if you will, and I thank them for it."
Who was it?
"I will keep that to myself. The point is that it was my decision."
Will you still be active? Do you already have private engagements?
"I don't, I've never done anything under the counter. I'm officially getting retired, and as of 26 December, my professional attitude towards work changes."
What is the first thing that you will do on 26 December?
"I will say good-bye to my associates, and I also need to prepare the documentation and submit it to the PDI Fund. I have nearly 44 years of service and almost 40 years of active work."
You also have the reduced service retirement benefit because you have worked with the Armed Forces?
"I received 24 months for one year for my service during the war."
What sentence summarizes the 40 years?
"Tilting at windmills."
More specifically?
"It's been a full 40 years, and the society still isn't aware of the importance of public health institutions and the fight to preserve the health of the population. People don't know what an epidemiologist does, no one sees us until a crisis comes along. Then everyone starts crying out, "Help!" The degradation of preventive medicine is best seen in funding. You cannot have heads of institutes struggling each month with handing out pay checks, while the others, the clinicians, receive their salaries from the budget unperturbed."
Whose criticism has hurt you the most?
"When a friend said, 'What are you doing in their company?!' That was the biggest insult. I wasn't in anyone's company, I was just with the government and those who represent it. And there are some among them that I have a profoundly different opinion of now, realizing how hard they're fighting for our country. The President of Serbia left me with a different impression than before. He gets in touch every time I write to him."
When was the last time that you wrote to him and what about?
"Two months ago. When he's suffering a tremendous injustice or is put under a lot of pressure, I send him a message of support, and he thanks me every time."
What about the Prime Minister?
"The Prime Minister was very fair. I've had verbal confrontations with her, but they were all polite. I have no objections to her work except when she didn't follow our suggestions."
Did the authorities provide support in that crisis period?
"That's a very sensitive issue. There were two periods there. At the very beginning, we had enormous support. Later on, there was still communication, sometimes quite discordant, but still acceptable."
What was the watershed moment?
"When the state of emergency was lifted [N.B. 6 May 2020], which was perceived in society as the end of the epidemic."
The announcements back then were along the same lines.
"I had never said that, nor had anyone else, except for some individuals from the so-called medical wing of the Task Force."
Professor Nestorović?
"He had different opinions quite often, but we successfully resolved that within the Task Force for a period of time."
Do the June 2020 elections have anything to do with that?
"No, they have absolutely nothing to do with that. Whether someone was being calculating about it, that I cannot say. The elections certainly had to be held at that time, because otherwise the Government would be illegitimate. And that was the most favourable moment. All other stories are pure speculation."
What followed in July was a Covid apocalypse.
"That's a different matter. People were divided into those who thought the pandemic was a good opportunity to unite in the fight against the virus, without any clashes, and those who preferred confrontations to get more airtime. My personal position was clear from the beginning until the end – my policy is that of an epidemiologist. Those who tried to initiate clashes formed an association, which looked spontaneous in the beginning and was quite attractive – United Against Covid (UAC). I was the only person in the Task Force who supported the UAC after they'd formed, and said that they could only help, given what they were called. I expected that the UAC would always support the medical wing of the Task Force. However, I'm very disappointed that they dragged into it some well-intentioned people and medical doctors who were dissatisfied with the overall situation, as were most of us. And then a handful of people misused that organization, in the same way they claimed that we were being misused by the political powers-that-be."
You don't feel misused?
"Not only do I not feel misused, but I put up quite a resistance to that idea. Under the Hippocratic Oath, teachers are always to be respected, and I'd like to add – even when what they're saying is… well, let's not be too crude here… However, these teachers, rather than giving their support to the medical wing of the Task Force, kept attacking it ferociously. And they were dead wrong regarding the matter, a mistake for the history books. The idea that medical professionals would run the state is truly infantile. You don't have that anywhere in the world."
You and the other Task Force doctors went from being treated almost like gods in the beginning to not being taken seriously at all.
"I don't see it that way. I have been praised, and people approach me in the street. But I'm still attacked, but rarely though. The last attack occurred after the man that I've sued had made a statement, and then someone cursed at me in the street."
It is one thing how ordinary people treat you, and quite another how the authorities do.
"Back in the beginning, I said that I am a man who responds to the calls of the state. I decided not to leave the position given to me in trust at any cost."
And you've suffered through it all?
"So far, I have."
So you are a soldier?
"That's right. If the Government needs the help of those seen as prominent experts, then it is only to be expected that society supports these people, who are not politicians. Make no mistake – they're not politicians, but they sometimes are in official positions and need to think about their positions. My position was ideal – I was nearing retirement, and I felt all the same about what my fate would be."
Are you trying to say that an expert should be calculating?
"Someone younger than me absolutely had to think about their future."
Where does Hippocrates come in here?
"It was Hippocrates himself who said that those who are elected are to be supported, not clashed with. The Hippocratic Oath says that my colleagues will be my brothers, rather than that I should attack them by claiming that a few or a handful of them are responsible for the deaths of many tens of thousands of people. That is politics."
You say many tens of thousands, but officially we have had a little more than 17,000 Covid-related deaths.
"The statistics clearly show that 60,000 is our excess mortality for the whole period of the pandemic, which calls for a detailed analysis. However, to use that in a one-sided fashion for dubious political purposes is pointless and insolent. The entire population's health condition should not be ignored."
Now you are close to the Minister of Health's standpoint regarding whether the deaths were from Covid or with Covid.
"This standpoint isn't just the Minister of Health's, it is simply a fact. I'm not relativizing or downplaying its importance – after all, I was the first one to point that out back when the excess mortality stood at a few hundred in September 2020. My colleagues are obviously reserved when it comes to such an analysis."
Are they being calculating?
"That's possible, I don't know. However, it certainly merits a detailed analysis."
If you were five or 10 years younger, would you raise that issue?
"Of course I would. What people are trying to pin solely on the government is insolence – it is a far more serious matter. The question remains how we had reached a point where we had such a general health-related situation in Serbia that we could have expected a far stronger pandemic blow than others. The anti-vaxxers saw an opening, some of them used it politically, and got into Parliament. I can say for myself that my conscience is clear."
You have not received any money during all this time?
"No money at all."
But then someone might say that you got your son a job at Air Serbia!
"Where is my son now? At Air Serbia? No!"
Where is he?
"He went back to his previous company – they pleaded with him and gave him a higher salary."
What is your biggest mistake?
"I have made no mistakes, either in my profession or in treating my friends."
You are very confident.
"Everyone makes mistakes, but I'm not aware of making any. They can drag me through the mud all they want, history will reveal the truth!"
THE MOST DRAMATIC TASK FORCE MEETING
'Why are you humiliating us?!'
What Task Force meeting was the most dramatic one?
"The one when I asked, 'Why are you humiliating us?! Why are you doing that?!' I'm saying this for the first time."
And what was the answer?
"It was a specific situation during a weekend and the lockdown. At that time, I got the lockdown. But what have I gained overall?"
HEALTH
'I've been hospitalized four times since the start of the pandemic'
How is your health? You have four bypasses and diabetes.
"Much better than before. Since the start of the pandemic, I've been hospitalized four times. In June 2021, I was at the Dedinje Institute, which is when they discovered that I'd had a leg infarction sometime in April that year, when I felt really unwell. But back at the time, there was no chance to get away. I went to the hospital when the peak went down, in June, and that's when the scar from the so-called silent infarction was discovered, as well as the fact that I had lost another bypass because I've been a diabetic for many years. I also had gangrene, so I was hospitalized at the University Medical Centre's Clinic for Vascular Surgery in March this year. I had two interventions on the leg blood vessels, they saved my toes, but the nails are gone. Then I was at the Vascular Clinic again in April for the other leg, but preventively – there was no need for an intervention. I received hyperbaric chamber therapy in April too, at the day hospital, because of the gangrene, and then I would go to the Task Force meetings."
Still, you look well.
"Everyone says that I look great, which has started to upset my wife: 'Nobody says anything to me, but people keep telling you how great you look.' "
PERHAPS A BOOK
'I don't wish to talk about Prof Radovanović'
You have announced that you might write a book.
"I feel a moral pressure over that, but I can't promise it will be any time soon. I'm thankful to academician Čolović for responding to Prof Zoran Radovanović clearly for the first time."
Why don't you respond to him?
"Never! I do not wish to rectify the big mistakes of a great teacher and leave such a historical mark on him."
He is a friend that you used to talk about earlier, who people want to see reconciled with you, but you are against it.
"I don't wish to discuss this."
GOING TO THE WAR VETERAN UNION
'I can't say a single bad word about General Mladić'
You started out as a medical corps doctor, went to the war zone, and your commander was Ratko Mladić.
"Just recently I had to collect all those documents and realized that I wasn't even in the War Veteran Union. I haven't done a lot of things. Now there are whole movements for the elderly, and that's what I've been thinking about."
You have said to us that Mladić was very fair.
"I try to be fair with everyone that I work with, and, in a professional sense, I don't have a single bad word about the general. I really don't know what was going on in Bosnia, and simply don't have a position regarding his sentence. All I can say is that I'm sorry that such a fate has befallen him. But I'm most of all sorry that Yugoslavia disintegrated."
BIVALENT VACCINE
'It would be better if it were a BA.5 vaccine'
The administration of the bivalent Covid vaccine with the BA.1 Omicron subvariant is starting on Monday, but BA.5 is prevalent here. Why wasn't a BA.5 vaccine obtained, and will you be taking this jab?
"I'll take it for sure, but BA.1 is also a version of Omicron. That said, it would be better if it were BA.4 or BA.5."
China has given up on its zero-Covid policy, lifted all the measures, and now they're counting the dead. Can there be a mutation there that will endanger the world?
"That irrepressibility of Omicron in China is to be expected, and yes, there could certainly be a mutation."
A NEW YEAR'S WISH
'The WHO to declare the end of the pandemic'
What is your wish for the New Year?
"Last year I wished for the Task Force to be cancelled and that I go into retirement. Both wishes have come true. As for 2023, my main wish is that the WHO declares the end of the pandemic."
And privately?
"To adapt to being retired."
THE GUITAR
'My fingers hurt'
Now that you're retiring, will you play the guitar in peace?
"I have problems with my left-hand fingers, I need to make them stronger because I haven't played for three years. I've tried, but it's too painful. On top of which, I've forgotten the lyrics. I most often sing "Osam Tamburaša S Petrovaradina", but I like The Beatles the most."
CORONA
'There will be over 1,000 new infections'
What awaits us regarding corona?
"We have a low Omicron activity in our immediate environment, while the activity is higher in countries from which people will be coming in for the holidays – France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria."
Are we in for a new wave after the New Year's?
"I cannot say, because there the numbers have started to drop, and that's a good sign for us. But we'll still have an uptick."
And a four-figure number of new daily infections, over 1,000?
"We can certainly expect a four-figure number. We'll be having a rise in the next two weeks. But we'll have subregistration over the New Year's and Christmas, with everyone staying at home and waiting for it to pass, not getting tested. Luckily, the number of deaths has fallen – we have less than ten deaths per day. The rise will last until the end of January, and then we'll see what happens with children going back to school and the flu – which is bound to be stronger this year."
STILL AN OPTIMIST
'We weren't ready'
You've been an optimist from the start?
"It's clear to everyone that we weren't ready for the pandemic. We didn't have the equipment, which is something I talked about back in March and April 2020. But those who were saying, 'We have no equipment, we feel terrible, what are we going to do now??' are defeatists. You can't do that. Talk and turn against your own people, which the Hippocratic Oath forbids, is for me the rock bottom. Especially if it's coupled with insults, and mentioning my ethnicity – and it's a well-known fact that I'm Jewish. I consider these things criminal offences."
But they haven't been designated as such?
"The legal system decided those were not criminal offences, but for purely formal reasons. No one said that a criminal offence had not been committed, but they didn't understand that what they were doing was a criminal offence. And they must understand. It's very clear that one political party organized people to gather in front of my building, but nothing's come of it."
Kurir.rs/Jelena S. Spasić
