Originally
posted by
Makinso:
Originally
posted by
smikke:
Originally
posted by
Makinso:
Originally
posted by
smikke:
Originally
posted by
Makinso:
Christ you americans have a stupid system.
Goverment support for anyone negatively impacted by Corona financially here has already been organized.
It won't be full coverage but they are pumping billions into civilian financial support. it is on a need to basis. So not everyone gets compensated you need to show that you will fall under minimal standards for income or get hit financially in a really hard and proveable way (don't know the exact calculations).
They organized it all in a 48 - 72 hours timeframe.
ahaha using the Netherlands as an example to laugh at America
here is how expats perceive the Dutch response:
https://www.econjobrumors.com/...h-response-to-coronavirus
LOL,
I read it fully, but it is written colorfully. The lines people are talking about? For sex shops / coffee shops etc? Was only about coffee shops selling weed. And people buying their legal amount before closing shops down. It was never about restaurants etc. Far as I can see all gyms, restaurants etc in my area are closed.
It also fails to tell the goverment following WHO and RIVM guidelines on group immunity and how these shut downs were set to be evaluated in 3 weeks. Evaluation criteria are based on group immunity. also WHO presses the fact that full lockdowns won't give group immunity.
Yes the dutch are lightminded by nature and yes we usually tend to take light measures at first. But we know how to upgrade those quickly if need be. That same type attitude in governing and child education makes dutch people / childeren among the happiest in the world.
I understand the perception of an expat...... but it only tells half a story.
Do you actually know how to scale up to serious measures though? The Dutch are #5 in Europe in deaths and are about to pass South Korea (the first big crisis outside of China) in deaths in less than a week. It shows that either the Dutch are unable to judge the situation correctly (given that the measures were until Monday looser than in countries with fewer than 5 deaths) or then that the Dutch are making a very economic calculation about an acceptable number of deaths that other countries refuse to make.
Your numbers are off, we're number 8 - 10 switching up and down. But recent statistic measures of COVID-19 spread have shown 3 things correlate with these death numbers. Total of residents in a country but also population density and average age. Netherlands is a very population dense country. So us being high up in numbers isn't strange. Another discussed variable is ethnic background vs biology. It is hypothesized at this very moment that the southern europeans but also arabs in the netherlands (our younger people getting COVID and heavy health problems seems to be pre-dominantly of non-dutch background) carry more of the ACE2 proteïn which is one of the proteïns COVID-19 jumpstarts and spreads on.
As for knowing how to escalates measures. We are prepared, Netherlands has all protocols in place to switch scenarios in a matter of hours. Every (semi) government institution has a 3 - 4 scenario playbook ready to switch immediately. For instance the institution I work in is in scenario 2 atm. Meaning all childeren are prohibited to go on leave to their parents or leave the facility without guidance. Leaving the facility is only in a need to situation. All neccesary employees falling into the health risk category or having relatives in that category are on forced paid leave, other employees will put in more time to compensate.
Scenario 3 has been setup. We have rented half a hotel which is 100 meters away from us and fully vacant due to dutch government measures. We will quarantaine any childeren that are hit with COVID-19 there. In collaboration with hospitals and the local health department a new set of caretakers with medical protection etc. will be installed in case of quarantine.
Scenario 4 is total lockdown. Which means only a select group of volunteering employees will keep the facility running at 150% pay. These volunteers are mostly non-young parent / health risk employees. And will likely not leave the facility during lockdown AKA live here temporarily. If it''s a long lockdown it will be in 2 groups shifts of 7 days on 7 off. In the 7 days off the employees being off will live in the quarantine hotel we rented.
Working closely with police i dare to say they have the same preparation. Special teams with the army have been formed to lockdown the Netherlands completely if need be. Those measures can be in place within 1-2 hours of the command to lock the Netherlands down. Our biggest risk (small country densily popuplated) is also our protection in this case.
So yes we are prepared.
How are the numbers off?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Netherlands is 8 IN THE WORLD in total deaths. Every country ahead of the Netherlands has a population of at least 60 million (Netherlands = 17.5). In terms of deaths/population, Netherlands ranks either 3 or 4 in the WORLD. This is despite the fact that the Netherlands has a younger population (you want to talk about risk groups, the biggest factor is not race but age) than almost all Western European countries (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ageing_of_Europe). Dense population? The country has more deaths than South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong PUT TOGETHER. 75% of deaths in the Netherlands are ALREADY outside intensive care units (i.e. they were denied intensive care), suggesting that the country puts saving money way ahead of saving lives (
https://www.nu.nl/...rland-lag-niet-op-ic.html). And what does the WHO say? It says we need more testing. What do the Dutch say? Testing is too expensive and pointless, let's just let the crisis roll in.
It's just incredible that you can somehow look at the situation and think "yeah, we're doing a great job here. Look at how fluffed the US is" (despite the US having 9 times fewer deaths from the disease as a proportion of the population than the NL and despite the fact that the US has rolled out mass testing whereas the NL sits on their asses because testing is too expensive).
Here are some fun articles about the Dutch response, including telling people it will not spread if you don't have symptoms and taking the strategy the UK abandoned
https://www.irishtimes.com/...onavirus-spread-1.4199027
https://www.irishtimes.com/...munity-strategy-1.4204578
This country is literally one of the worst responders to the coronavirus epidemic in the world. This is what makes it so strange to see Dutch people going on about how OTHER countries have messed this up, but then again, this seems like typical Dutch arrogance. Honestly I am so glad my elderly parents are in a country where the attitude when they get sick is not "you're going to die anyway so we won't treat you" (see the article about 75% of patients dying outside of intensive care) and the public isn't so convinced that "oh yeah we're not Southern European it won't happen to us."
Also, in terms of measures. I work for a "semi-government" institution here and the response has been stupid and reactive - everything in the universities thread applies my university. When they finally told us to work from home, it turns out all of these committees for distance learning and coronavirus had not prepared at all so we got a week worth of spam with contradicting instructions on how we are actually meant to teach, with the final conclusion being "figure it out on your own." US universities on the other hand immediately told staff how to switch and they were able to switch immediately.
EE Patron