Social isolation does not work. The remedy is worse than the disease. At the moment we have had social isolation for a month in the Netherlands. Major events have been canceled. Bars and restaurants are closed, everyone works at home behind the computer if possible. People should keep 1.5 meters away from strangers. Groups of more than 3 people together are prohibited. The number of deaths and the number of new patients in intensive care units is currently decreasing. Bottleneck is the small number of ic beds per capita in the Netherlands. It will take a few more weeks before we are back to “normal” capacity utilization. It is expected that as soon as measures to prevent spread are lifted, the number of new cases will increase. Looking purely at prevention, this situation should last until there is a pill against this disease. And that can take another six months. And then hope that the disease does not mutate to a new variant, just like with the seasonal flu.
However, the economy has also become a patient due to these measures. The economic downturn is unprecedented. … Only not to measure according to the usual methods. New official figures for economic growth will not be available until May. Yet there is already an urgent need to know what is to come economically. The current situation is so unique that there are no economic models for it. According to the NOS (Dutch public broadcaster), economists are trying to get a grip by experimenting with so called ‘nowcasting’ instead of forecasting, such as counting the number of times a barrier at the port of Rotterdam opens in real time.
Perhaps the coming downturn of the economy can be compared to that of the Second World War. Demolishing something is easy but rebuilding it again is much more difficult when it takes too long. Simply put, do we choose the end of civilization in these regions or will we take a different approach?
The truth is that it is still the case that the average age of the people who die is 70 years old. So it is still an old people’s disease or deadly to the physically weak in this society. …..A bit of bad luck if it is your own grandpa or grandma. Or father and mother…. Last week, the blood bank reported that 3 percent of donors had Corona. A much higher percentage is required for group immunity. An intermediate variant between the current measures mentioned above and opening everything up is to ensure that the current measures only apply to people over 50 and those who are weak. So that the rest just get sick and group immunity arises. Additional measures such as supporting loneliness, having groceries delivered, etc. must then be taken. And maybe just knowingly and exclusively voluntarily infecting non-risk groups. I don’t see the latter as politically possible of course … But it would be nice if we had everything behind us within 1 month.
A learning moment is that air pollution has never been so low here. The daily traffic jam problem has also been solved. It would be nice for humanity if there would also be a balance between the ecological footprint of consumption in western and semi-western economies and what the earth can handle.
This is also a chance!