Chapter 474 Accountability and Blame-Shifting

If the European governments before June were sure of victory, then starting from August, the governments were like ants on a hot pot, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe them as panicking.

The high death toll made the priests in the church almost too busy. Because almost all funerals in Europe require priests to preside over, baptize the dead, and wash away their sins.

But the problem is that the death toll in various countries has skyrocketed, but the number of priests has remained basically unchanged. Even many priests are within the scope of influenza infection. After all, they need to contact corpses and are naturally high-risk.

Fortunately, there is no tradition of hanging white sails in Europe, otherwise, Europe at this time would be a white ocean.

Funerals in many areas are even collective activities. A priest often needs to preside over several funerals at the same time to let the dead meet God in groups.

There is no way around it. If the dead are not allowed to meet God in groups, I am afraid the priest will go to meet God.

Fortunately, Arthur is a little moral and did not hoard supplies in advance for sale like in the previous war.

Apart from anything else, the coffin merchants made a lot of money this time. Coffins became one of the most urgently needed materials in Europe overnight, and the price even doubled or tripled.

If Arthur really had no conscience, he would have hoarded coffins in advance for sale, which would have earned at least millions of Australian dollars.

However, doing so would indeed lose his reputation, and it was unnecessary for Arthur, who was already rich enough to rival a country.

Arthur was averse to making money from national disasters and dead people, and people who made such money were really heartless.

When European countries began to implement various systems to curb the spread of influenza, they realized that copying homework was not easy.

It is very difficult to completely isolate a country. The attitude of the people, the guarantee of materials, and the execution of governments at all levels all need to be controlled by the government.

Even if European countries completely closed their ports and stopped trade with foreign countries at this time, it would be too late.

Viruses are not something that can be stopped. Even if Australia and Australia took preventive measures two months in advance, thousands of cases of influenza still broke out, and the death toll exceeded double digits.

European countries are even more miserable. The death toll in the UK has exceeded 300,000. After the virus spread from the UK to India, the death toll in India is even more unknown.

You know, Europe's sanitary conditions are world-class. Colonies like India have pitifully poor sanitary conditions.

It is no exaggeration to say that the death toll in India is at least 20 times that of the UK, and there is no upper limit.

Even colonies far away from India, such as the Dutch East Indies, began to spread influenza, and caused a tragic record of hundreds of people in a small village being infected and all dead.

The streets in Europe have become deserted since August, and it is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of miles of empty alleys.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the wailing floating over the city. I don't know how many people have lost their families. Funerals can be seen everywhere in the city. Even a village has held nearly 20 funerals a day, breaking the record in France.

It is no exaggeration to say that Europe is a hell, because people feel that their lives are more miserable than hell now.

But there is a key issue. In faraway Oceania, there is a country whose current situation is completely different from that of Europe, and it has not even been seriously affected.

As the saying goes, there is no harm without comparison. The people originally had a good impression of the free supplies given by the government during the flu, but with the comparison of Australasia, most Europeans only felt that their own government did nothing because of the government's carelessness in the early stage, which led to such a serious crisis now.

At this time, the French restored their traditions, and a large number of people began to march in the streets, but some people wore masks, and some people were still like before the flu.

I don't admire that Europeans are really not afraid of death when protesting against the government. The flu is so serious that some people really don't wear masks.

The protests of the people have caused a lot of headaches for the French government. If a strict isolation system is implemented like Australasia, the people will protest that the government has deprived them of their freedom.

But if a looser management is implemented, the French will protest that the government has not taken any action. This is simply a difficult choice.

In order to calm the anger of the people, the French government had to find another way and announced that it would invest 4 billion francs to save the flu crisis, of which 2.5 billion francs were used to purchase supplies for the people and 1.5 billion francs were used for drug research.

Now the anger of the people has subsided. At least the government has also taken out real money, which can be regarded as making a difference.

Seeing that there were fewer people marching on the streets, the French government was relieved and urgently communicated with other countries to try to buy some supplies.

As one of the countries with the largest casualties in World War I, France's material consumption was also very huge.

Even in the middle and late stages, France relied on material support from Britain, which allowed the French government to persist.

After the victory of the war, the French naturally could not get support from Britain and could only rely on the transportation of materials from the colonies to recover.

But the question is, with the flu so serious now, do the French dare to let the colonial ships dock?

You know, according to the UK's tracking, the second round of the epidemic officially began on merchant ships from West Africa to British ports. This also means that the epidemic in Africa is far more serious than in Europe, but the statistical capabilities of the colonies and indigenous countries are not that strong.

This is like the UK and India. Currently, the total number of deaths in the UK from influenza has exceeded 400,000, and the total number of deaths in India is about 500,000.

But who dares to believe that this data is true? Just talking about India, the death toll must be at least ten times larger, after all, India's statistical ability is obvious to all.

The British colonial government's statistics on Indian casualties, except for some mixed-race Indians, the British do not care about the casualties of most real Indians.

After all, India has the second largest population in the world, which is a wealth that can never be spent.

For European countries, there is basically no progress in current drug research. Although the British government has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in drug research, the problem is that there are hundreds of types of influenza viruses raging in Europe alone, and they are still increasing.

Conservative estimates show that there are at least hundreds of influenza viruses in the world. It is impossible to develop a drug for each influenza virus, right?

Let alone whether a drug can be developed for each influenza virus, the cost of developing more than 300 drugs alone is enough to give any country a headache.

As for whether it is possible for countries to share the progress of drug research, such an idea may be realized thousands of years later, but definitely not now.

The competition between countries is terrible, far more terrible than this flu.

It is no exaggeration to say that any country that develops a drug will never choose to make it public, but will use it as a trump card to exchange for several times or even dozens of times the benefits of other countries.

As scientific research institutions in various countries began to declare the difficulty of drug research, European countries also became pessimistic about this flu.

Arthur felt that the atmosphere was almost set, so he asked intelligence personnel to disclose the origin and location of the flu to the European media, and emphasized that the US government knew about the flu outbreak, but still chose to hide the news, resulting in this global disaster.

Businessmen are all profit-seeking, and the media and newspapers are no exception. After using a little bit of money, hundreds of European media published news reports on the same day that pointed the finger at the United States, saying: "If it weren't for the carelessness and concealment of the US government, the world would not be facing such a serious crisis."

This report not only emphasized the responsibility of the United States, but also openly held the United States accountable.

As these newspapers were purchased or learned by many Europeans, the United States instantly became the target of public criticism, and even many European countries began to protest, demanding humanitarian compensation from the United States and asking for the loss of various countries in this flu.

The United States does not care about the voice of one country, but if it is several countries or even more than a dozen countries, even the United States, as one of the great powers, has to stand up and explain.

But unfortunately, European media and countries do not accept the explanation of the United States. Because the report has enough evidence to prove that the flu first started in the Kansas military camp in the United States.

Even many media began to doubt on their own initiative for traffic, and even openly condemned the United States for researching biological weapons, which accidentally leaked, which led to this global flu.

It doesn't matter if you spread rumors with one mouth and run your legs to refute them. Regardless of whether the United States has conducted research on biological and chemical weapons, the United States is now like mud in the crotch, and it is impossible to explain it clearly.

Many small and medium-sized European countries have already clamored to call for the World Alliance to hold a meeting to collectively sanction the United States and demand that the United States compensate all countries in the World Alliance.

Britain and France actually know who pushed these media in the first place. After all, the intelligence departments of Britain and France are not vegetarians.

But the problem is that the flu is so serious that Britain and France also need a scapegoat to alleviate the blame of the domestic people.

It is a fact that the British and French governments did not pay attention to the flu in the early stage. They can only use a bigger news to cover up the government's responsibility, and Americans are very suitable.

Anyway, some European countries and people have already believed that Americans are the culprits of this flu, and Britain and France do not mind continuing to push and let Americans take the blame thoroughly.

Regardless of whether Americans are innocent or not, now Americans are and must be the culprits.

A few days later, British and French research institutions also published reports one after another. However, the report did not mention that Americans were the culprits of the flu, but it also metaphorically proposed that the second round of flu viruses were extremely similar to the first round of flu, and most of the strains of the first round of flu came from the United States.

This completely confirmed the Americans' guilt. Europeans shared the same hatred and broke out in demonstrations, demanding that the World Alliance sanction the United States.

The British and French demonstration teams also changed from protesting the government's inaction to protesting the United States, and even demanded that the United States declare war on the United States if it did not compensate.

I dare not say how much Europeans' goodwill towards the United States has decreased, but at least in the next two or three years, Americans will not be the most popular immigration area for Europeans.

Even many Americans were influenced by European media reports and began to march to protest the government's concealment in the early stage of the flu.

You know, the number of deaths in the United States during the flu is not low. The current number of deaths has exceeded 300,000, which is 5 times the number of deaths in the United States in World War I.

The number of casualties in the war is not as high as that of this flu, which also makes many Americans extremely dissatisfied with the government. Many newspapers have even shouted: Wilson step down!

Although Arthur did not publicize any preventive measures in Australasia in order to avoid suspicion.

But it is a sharp contrast after all. Many Europeans have seen Australasia's efforts in this flu, especially the Australasia army's personal participation in the transportation of supplies and door-to-door delivery, which makes a large number of European people envious.

If there is a questionnaire at this time to investigate the countries that European people want to travel or immigrate to, Australasia is definitely ranked first, and there is no competitor.

Speaking of tourism, we have to mention those tourists who are dissatisfied with Australasia's isolation system and choose to return to their own countries in the early stage of the flu.

Most of these people are Europeans, and they have successfully returned to their own countries.

If you want to ask these people how they feel at this time, from their regretful expressions, you can see how much they regret it.

On the contrary, the small number of tourists who choose to stay in Australasia are extremely fortunate at this time.

After learning about the current situation in Europe, they chose to join the Australasia nationality without hesitation and enjoy the free treatment of Australasia during the flu.

The supplies they isolated are free, and the food, clothing, housing and transportation are all borne by the Australasia government, and the treatment is also free.

Thanks to Australasia's preventive measures, the number of infected people among the tourists who stayed is very small. Although there were some deaths, compared with the current situation where most people were safe and sound, staying was definitely the best choice.

These people no longer dared to express any dissatisfaction with Australasia's quarantine policy, and praised Australasia's system in any venue.

This situation was also revealed to their relatives in Europe, and was quickly known to European newspapers and more Europeans.

After learning that Australasia not only provided all materials for free, but also provided free treatment for influenza, a large number of Europeans had only one thought at this time, that is: how great it would be if they were Australasia!

Although this flu prevented them from immigrating to Australasia in a short period of time, many people have firmly established their belief in immigrating to Australasia, and Australasia's immigration appeal has skyrocketed overnight.

Some extreme people are even ready to buy a boat ticket to Australasia immediately.

Although Australasia has already closed its borders, the colonies are not completely closed. There are still some ports developed that can receive some immigrants.

It's just that these immigrants will be completely isolated in the colonies, and they can only choose the area they really want to go to after the flu is completely over.

But no matter what, these immigrants will also enjoy free supplies, which makes many Europeans feel excited.

It is not easy to buy a ticket during the flu season, especially for a ship that crosses half the world. It is inevitable to stop at other ports, which is easy to be infected with the flu at the docking place, increasing the risk of infection.

It is precisely this reason that prevents a large number of Europeans from immigrating to Australasia. Otherwise, Australasia can get millions or even tens of millions of European immigrants in a short period of time just by relying on free supplies and free treatment.

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