Kumanovo Mayor Maksim Dimitrievski rejected the allegations from Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce that they were not informed of the risks when coming to Kumanovo for a crisis meeting. The Mayor of the hard hit city was confirmed Covid-19 positive on Thursday, a day after a number of top Government officials came to Kumanovo for a meeting. This prompted that interim Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski, Filipce and Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani – who are key in handling the coronavirus crisis management efforts – and Education Minister Arbr Ademi are all ordered to self-isolate.

Filipce claimed that Dimitrievski did not inform the visiting Government delegation that he is being tested, but Dimitrievski rejected this claim.

I’m surprised that Filipce says he did not know we are being tested. He knew that the Kumanovo hospital representatives are being tested, and still he visited them a few days ago. The Ministry did the testing, he should have known. They run the analysis I would like to ask him, in turn, why does it take so long to process the results? Why can’t we get the results the same day?, Dimitrievski said.

The Government is now in an unprecedented situation to have full power concentrated in it, but its key people are sidelined at home, forced to work online. Kumanovo, with more than 300 cases, is the worst hit large city so far, and Dimitrievski has asked that it is placed under quarantine for weeks, but the Government refused to do so. This was attributed in the public to local rivalry in the ruling SDSM party, with Dimitrievski and Prime Minister Spasovski coming from the same party branch, but having allegedly a difficult time working together. Dimitrievski has publicly accused Spasovski of abandoning the city to its fate.

In an interview with Alfa TV, Dimitrievski also shot out at Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska, who said that imposing a quarantine on Kumanovo would eat up too much of the Government’s resources.

I say that human life has no price. No profits justify losing even one life, Dimitrievski responded.

Macedonia so far quarantined only the small city of Debar and the surrounding rural municipality of Centar Zupa, and Government institutions were able to provide them with the necessary food and medicine. But Kumanovo, and Prilep which is also having a growing number of Covid-19 cases, are ten times bigger – not to mention the capital Skopje which leads in overall cases, but is behind Kumanovo and Prilep in per capita cases.