Normally Van Ranst works long days and comes home in the evenings between 7.30 and 11.30 pm, but on Monday 17 May – the day that the armed Conings monitored the virologist’s house – he was home earlier than usual. He had given himself half a day’s leave ‘which meant I was home at half past five for the first time in eighteen months. Never happened in the last year and a half.”
,,If that man knew a little bit about my routine, he could just wait for me on any other day. That’s a nasty thought.” Van Ranst sketches in his diary how he learned from the police on May 18 of the threat by Conings. “He told me that there was a very concrete, demonstrable threat, and that the police would come and pick me up.”
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Nevertheless, he indicates that he will not be intimidated. “It makes me more combative. Giving in to intimidation doesn’t work either. That just reinforces the idea that intimidation is marching, and I don’t wish that on them.” The virologist has not lost his sense of humor either. “The worst was yet to come,” he says about his experiences in hiding.
,,My family has obliged me here to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. Even to the two semifinals. (..) See me now chatting about the Eurovision Song Contest. You see, I’m clearly not well.” He says he is resigned to undergoing this period. “It is what it is. There are much worse things. It’s not that I have to work in the coal mines.”
The virologist is also optimistic about the containment of the pandemic. Van Ranst: ,,The big work has been done. The curve is going down, the government is easing. And we now know: that is the moment when everyone suddenly becomes smart and knew perfectly how everything had to be done. The ability to predict the past is impressive for some.”
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