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There are not a lot of other choices. The Netherlands is doing the same as other countries but our prime minister is more fair/ open about the virus. Yes most

by TeeWEE 7y ago

There are not a lot of other choices. The Netherlands is doing the same as other countries but our prime minister is more fair/ open about the virus. Yes most people will get the virus anyway, anywhere. All measures are there to "flatten the curve". https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/13/815502262/flattening-a-pandemics-curve-why-staying-home-now-can-save-lives https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/13/8155022... Netherlands has all the policies in place to flatten the curve. Work from home, schools closed, no big events. etc. Its only fair that the prime minister says: everybody will get it. heck 50% to 75% of the cases are asymptomatic.

zozbot234 7y ago
> Netherlands has all the policies in place to flatten the curve. Work from home, schools closed, no big events. etc. This is not nearly enough, unfortunately; we know this because other countries tried it initially and failed to keep the outbreak contained. You should stay at home as much as possible, and minimize your interactions with others if you must go out for whatever reason. Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the home. If only to protect others who might be vulnerable.
- TeeWEE 7y ago
  You are describing the Dutch policy...
- mstolpm 7y ago
  > Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the home. Here in Austria, you can't even get masks or single-use hand gloves anymore. And I hear the same is happening in Germany. Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people (like cashiers in supermarkets, helpers and medial staff). We have a lockdown, so everyone should stay at home and only go outside if necessary.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people There's no real reason for this - not for low-grade ("surgical" or even "dust-proof") masks at least, and these are most critical in order to protect others in case you're sick and asymptomatic. Chinese suppliers are shipping those out as fast as they can make them, and many factories that normally make e.g. textiles and the like could retool and start making them if it came to that.
mantap 7y ago
The other choice is to implement strict social distancing for a few months, close the border and then require a 14 day isolation for international arrivals until a vaccine is available. This is what China is doing and it's working. This isn't an illness you can "let" people have because of the effect on hospitals.
- TeeWEE 7y ago
  Suppose you could implement 100% lockdown of a country (which is impossible). Yes you would contain the disease, but you would only delay an outbreak. Therefore flattening the curve enough so the health-care system can help the ill is the beat strategy. The question is: is the curve going to be flattened enough, or do we need more extreme measures like china. In countries where the health care system is poor extreme measures are indeed needed because they really need to flatten the curve a lot.
  - toyg 7y ago
    Italy has a pretty decent healthcare system and still had to go full-lockdown.
  - mantap 7y ago
    This is not a quality of healthcare issue. The interventions are relatively straightforward: oxygen, possibly antibiotics for secondary infection, and for a small percentage of patients, ventilation. This is a quantity of healthcare issue. China was probably the best placed of any country in terms of its ability to ramp up production of hospitals and all the necessary equipment. Some patients will get very sick with sepsis and then it becomes a quality of care issue but that's the minority.
  - DougN7 7y ago
    My concern is how long we’ll have to work to flatten the curve (i.e. how many illnesses are there per month if we get it as flat as we hope). As someone else said, another Great Depression will also bring death. Crappy options :(
grey-area 7y ago
This was the UK government position till a few days ago. Then they ran the numbers again and changed their mind, because even with all mitigation measures in place they estimated around 250k deaths with this approach. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... The UK is now heading towards a more comprehensive shutdown and I suspect will resemble France and Spain soon - the method referred to in this paper as suppression. This will be really damaging to the economy though and probably lead to a global depression if it is done everywhere. I'm honestly not sure which is worse, because a global depression will lead to a lot of deaths as well.

by TeeWEE 7y ago

zozbot234 7y ago

> Netherlands has all the policies in place to flatten the curve. Work from home, schools closed, no big events. etc. This is not nearly enough, unfortunately; we know this because other countries tried it initially and failed to keep the outbreak contained. You should stay at home as much as possible, and minimize your interactions with others if you must go out for whatever reason. Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the home. If only to protect others who might be vulnerable.

TeeWEE 7y ago
You are describing the Dutch policy...
mstolpm 7y ago
> Also, you should definitely be wearing protective equipment when outside the home. Here in Austria, you can't even get masks or single-use hand gloves anymore. And I hear the same is happening in Germany. Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people (like cashiers in supermarkets, helpers and medial staff). We have a lockdown, so everyone should stay at home and only go outside if necessary.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > Moreover, we are advised _not_ to buy protective gear for individual use because that is needed for workers with much exposition to other people There's no real reason for this - not for low-grade ("surgical" or even "dust-proof") masks at least, and these are most critical in order to protect others in case you're sick and asymptomatic. Chinese suppliers are shipping those out as fast as they can make them, and many factories that normally make e.g. textiles and the like could retool and start making them if it came to that.

mantap 7y ago

The other choice is to implement strict social distancing for a few months, close the border and then require a 14 day isolation for international arrivals until a vaccine is available. This is what China is doing and it's working. This isn't an illness you can "let" people have because of the effect on hospitals.

TeeWEE 7y ago
Suppose you could implement 100% lockdown of a country (which is impossible). Yes you would contain the disease, but you would only delay an outbreak. Therefore flattening the curve enough so the health-care system can help the ill is the beat strategy. The question is: is the curve going to be flattened enough, or do we need more extreme measures like china. In countries where the health care system is poor extreme measures are indeed needed because they really need to flatten the curve a lot.
- toyg 7y ago
  Italy has a pretty decent healthcare system and still had to go full-lockdown.
- mantap 7y ago
  This is not a quality of healthcare issue. The interventions are relatively straightforward: oxygen, possibly antibiotics for secondary infection, and for a small percentage of patients, ventilation. This is a quantity of healthcare issue. China was probably the best placed of any country in terms of its ability to ramp up production of hospitals and all the necessary equipment. Some patients will get very sick with sepsis and then it becomes a quality of care issue but that's the minority.
- DougN7 7y ago
  My concern is how long we’ll have to work to flatten the curve (i.e. how many illnesses are there per month if we get it as flat as we hope). As someone else said, another Great Depression will also bring death. Crappy options :(

grey-area 7y ago

This was the UK government position till a few days ago. Then they ran the numbers again and changed their mind, because even with all mitigation measures in place they estimated around 250k deaths with this approach. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s... The UK is now heading towards a more comprehensive shutdown and I suspect will resemble France and Spain soon - the method referred to in this paper as suppression. This will be really damaging to the economy though and probably lead to a global depression if it is done everywhere. I'm honestly not sure which is worse, because a global depression will lead to a lot of deaths as well.