5 ms·

I guess you lack some context, but if we just assume you are talking about covid, well, yeah, the positive test numbers in NL looks quite bad: https://www.world

by cheph 6y ago

I guess you lack some context, but if we just assume you are talking about covid, well, yeah, the positive test numbers in NL looks quite bad: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherland... But your covid deaths are not really reflecting this rise. Same can be seen in France and Germany. Quite odd actually.

the-dude 6y ago
COVID is what the article starts with. The fact the death rate is not the same as earlier this year is not surprising. I am talking about my own experiences in my home town.
IkmoIkmo 6y ago
It's not really odd at all. For one, we're testing at about 10x the rate that we saw in the first wave, while we're at 3x the number of daily infections as during the first wave. If you test 10x more people in period B as in period A, and in both periods you have the same infection rate, you'd expect 10x as many confirmed cases. The fact we see only 3x as many daily confirmed cases despite 10x more testing, means the population is actually far less infected now than during the first wave. We simply test more. Second, the demographics of the infected has massively changed between the first and current wave: https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2020-10/nl-heatd-0210.png https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2020-10/nl-heatd-02... As you can see, most confirmed cases consisted of elderly during the first wave. These are now much more insulated. Young people are now mostly infected, and survive. This translates into far lower mortality and hospitalisation figures per infected. Lastly, even though there is no vaccine yet, most people survive and this requires various treatments, we've seen small improvements in these treatments, but this is mostly a matter of increased throughput due to shorter hospital stays. In short, there are actually (currently) fewer infected than during the first wave, and a lower infected to hospitalised/mortality rate. None of this is to argue that things are okay or that the current policy is sufficient. Not at all. But it's entirely not true that the current wave is worse than the first wave, even in terms of the number of infected. And there are very well known and sensible reasons for why the current wave has a lower impact on health or mortality figures.

by cheph 6y ago

the-dude 6y ago

COVID is what the article starts with. The fact the death rate is not the same as earlier this year is not surprising. I am talking about my own experiences in my home town.

IkmoIkmo 6y ago

It's not really odd at all. For one, we're testing at about 10x the rate that we saw in the first wave, while we're at 3x the number of daily infections as during the first wave. If you test 10x more people in period B as in period A, and in both periods you have the same infection rate, you'd expect 10x as many confirmed cases. The fact we see only 3x as many daily confirmed cases despite 10x more testing, means the population is actually far less infected now than during the first wave. We simply test more. Second, the demographics of the infected has massively changed between the first and current wave: https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2020-10/nl-heatd-0210.png https://datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2020-10/nl-heatd-02... As you can see, most confirmed cases consisted of elderly during the first wave. These are now much more insulated. Young people are now mostly infected, and survive. This translates into far lower mortality and hospitalisation figures per infected. Lastly, even though there is no vaccine yet, most people survive and this requires various treatments, we've seen small improvements in these treatments, but this is mostly a matter of increased throughput due to shorter hospital stays. In short, there are actually (currently) fewer infected than during the first wave, and a lower infected to hospitalised/mortality rate. None of this is to argue that things are okay or that the current policy is sufficient. Not at all. But it's entirely not true that the current wave is worse than the first wave, even in terms of the number of infected. And there are very well known and sensible reasons for why the current wave has a lower impact on health or mortality figures.