Posted on 04/05/2020 8:03:06 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The Netherlands has tried to adopt an "intelligent lockdown", but the infection is spreading rapidly and it has one of the world's highest mortality rates from the pandemic.
The Dutch have also been accused of failing to show solidarity with countries in southern Europe hit hardest by coronavirus.
So what are the Dutch trying to achieve and how has stricken Italy reacted?
The Dutch are among the few openly embracing the contentious idea of group or herd immunity. It's an approach characterised by one Dutch global health expert as cold and calculated.
Having shunned the stricter measures of neighbouring states the government has pursued an "intelligent" or "targeted" lockdown. It wants to cushion the social, economic and psychological costs of social isolation and make the eventual return to normality more manageable.
My local florist, ironmonger, delicatessen, bakery and toy store are still serving customers. Posters on the door and sticky tape on the floor encourage people to give each other space. Staff at the tills wear surgical gloves.
Only those businesses that require touching, like hairdressers, beauticians and red light brothels, have been forced to cease trading.
Schools, nurseries and universities are closed until at least 28 April.
Bars, restaurants and cannabis cafes are shut, although they seem to be doing a roaring trade in takeaways.
"We think we're cool-headed," explained Dr Louise van Schaik of the Clingendael Institute of International Relations. "We don't want to overreact, to lock up everybody in their houses. And it's easier to keep the generations apart here, because grandpa and grandma don't live at home with their children."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
What the heck does “failing to show solidarity” mean?
Don’t ask questions, comrade.
They have had 17,953 (diagnosed) cases and 1766 deaths compared with 124,632 cases and 15,362 deaths in Italy. Math wasn’t my major in college, but it seems like the Dutch are doing better than Italy.
I have a sick feeling the “experts” will decide that Herd immunity was the way to go after all, but only after the economy has been totally trashed and the bloody, violent riots have been put down.
The daily growth rate in the Netherlands for CV cases for the last 7 days has averaged 9.9%. By comparison, locked down neighboring Germany has seen about 9.2% average daily growth, and Belgium about 14% growth. Why is there not more skepticism about these lockdowns when there is data showing that countries that don’t lock down aren’t seeing much difference in case growth?
A lot of people (including a lot of Freepers) are upset with anyone who isn’t joining the stampede.
They are trying to shame them into start running madly.
The Dutch will lose many old folks — what’s left of their sensible, un-indoctrinated, un-progressive population. Their leadership is pleased.
Sweden and Belarus? What’s the comp data?
Infections : 124,000
Deaths 15,000
How is what we are doing anything but approaching herd quasi-immunity slowly [NYC excepted]?
YES I agree with you entirely....Good thing I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me as I know I only have to answer to God for my actions. I find it rather sad how lemmingish people are .
Your attitude is noted comrade.
The dutch don’t care. After all they practice euthanasia of humans.
I recall traveling in Europe a few years back and recall how greedy the Dutch are and how other Western Europeans used to say that “ everyone hates the Dutch”.
So it hardly surprises that the dutch would practice a theory which kills the old people. Frees up more housing, etc for everyone else.
everybody and their comrade is counting in their own way...some places are listing heart attacks, etc as covid..so I don’t know how we can trust any stats....
Because the two kinds of lockdowns aren’t really all that different.
If you’re in the ‘necesesary’ grocery store with 200 of your nearest and dearest companions...you’re not locked down.
‘We’ were locked down Friday at 5pm. Yesterday the walmart parking lot was completely full with cars parked along the road. Never seen it that full even on Black Friday. While they were limiting people in the store, there was a HUGE crowd of people outside. With nothing else to do, ‘take the family to walmart’ becomes the entertainment.
FedEx delivery chick could talk about nothing else...had pictures on her phone.
Everybody knows that herd immunity is the only answer. The only questions are how fast to achieve it and how to achieve it. I see three different scenarios:
1. Zero controls, life mostly as usual (e.g., the Netherlands). This is the “Let’s just get it over with” approach. Huge numbers get sick all at once, health care system collapses. Achieve herd immunity entirely through everybody getting sick and their immune systems providing immunity (which is not yet well understood). Maybe 80% of the population will have gotten it (just my guess).
2. Medium controls; modest quarantine and economy controls. Slow down rate at which people get sick. Allow time for vaccine to be developed as well as drugs to act as prophylactics or cures. Maybe 60-70% of the population will have gotten it (again, my guess).
3. Full controls; strict quarantine over longer time period, strict economic controls of business. Really slow down the rate at which people get hospitalized and die. Allows a lot more time for vaccine and prophylactic/treatment drug development. Maybe 45-65% of population will have gotten it before the vaccine was introduced. Far fewer seriously ill and dead. But huge economic devastation, depression, and major deflation. Possibly huge inflation taking off after it is over.
Just last week they had settled on “herd immunity”. What happened? Seems to me once you have made that decision you pretty much are stuck with it.
Forget All for one and one for all. When the going gets tough, each nation circles wagons and tends to its own.
I think the extreme social distancing we are doing is going to result in flare-ups once people do start getting back together. So, yes, eventually it will result in Herd immunity, but only over a period of many months or years (vs. 1-2 months).
However, in the meantime, we will wreck our economy by trying to flatten the curve.
Just my 2 cents.
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