Isn’t that what China has been attempting for months, rather unsuccessfully?
Regimes lock up particular people when particular people are a threat. They may lock people up unnecessarily just to err on the side of caution. But if they overdo it it can backfire. So far the main reason I hear from Chinese people to criticize Xi and the CCP is mostly about COVID and lockdowns, and never for any of the reasons westerners point the finger against the regime
If you had to choose between a 1% risk of being crippled by COVID, or a 100% risk of living under the strictest lockdown measures your country had for the rest of your life, what would you choose? And the actual risk of long-term consequences is lower.
I live in Europe, the "infected" have gone to work just fine since this February just fine. I mean, those that didn't call in sick days out of their own volition.
Mr. Bones wild ride is real! https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/rhs54/one_does_not_...
It's a little frustrating, because a bit of painless extra caution now could help avoid something stronger down the line :-/
And of course, all those deaths are horrible, and I feel that pain when I contemplate that for a second. But in my day to day life, I don't see why I'd need to change my behavior.
I am a bit worried about the effects of long Covid for people, but IMO I feel like I need to choose the lesser between two evils which is:
1. Do I lock myself down for 2 years, and fight preventing long Covid and 2% deaths population wide?
2. Do I lock myself down for 5 years, and fight preventing reduced long Covid and 0.15% deaths population wide?
The choices are written down simplified. If you think that there's hindsight bias, there's some but a lot less than you think. I was 2 to 3 weeks ahead of the Dutch government at any point in time. I've been able to protect all the people I care about. For example, my grandparents/parents never caught Covid when there was no vaccine (I was tracking Covid since mid Feb 2022 as a potential threat and constantly ran the probabilities). I'm not even sure if my grandparents ever caught it.
[1] coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl
Just look at the RIVM site. It's probably higher than you specified, closer to 6-7k average per year, with massive differences.
> on average 5 people are dying per day (1825 per year)
This is a bit of a dishonest comparison. You're looking at the numbers from before the expected peak, since it's still incredibly warm in the Netherlands right now and peaks seem to happen when it gets colder. So it'll probably be closer to 4000 per year.
While that still seems less than the flu, it's important to realize that the most vulnerable people are now getting vaccinated multiple times a year for covid. A lot of people who never got a flu shot are also being vaccinated. Then there's the fact that a lot of people are still distancing more than they used to. There's more work from home, many people still stay home when they have covid, while in the past, many people prided themselves for going to work with the flu.
It's really hard to compare historic flu statistics with current covid statistics, because the way we handle covid is still very different from how we used to handle the flu. Therefore your conclusion is misguided.
Now I really don't care whether you care about covid, but at lease the interpretation of the statistics should be correct and you missed a ton of details.
It was never as high as 2% in the first place. The numbers were inflated because we didn't have enough tests to go around, so only the people who we were already pretty sure were infected were tested.
Personal observation ( which contracts established 'science' ). There were always some 'long' aspects of all diseases including for colds/coughs/flu/tuberculosis etc. Nothing special with 'covid'.
Discussions? It's already a thing at least here in Lithuania. Unless you're seriously ill with side effects, you're good to go.
On the other side, in some parts of Europe there's a discussion to let the infected go to work (even with symptoms and of course, if one's feeling capable of work) - but, still, go to work with other infected/work with infected.
I can understand that with so high density in people even one infection can lead to big massive spreads and thus to overloaded capacity of local hospitals in less than 48h - but, it's too much. I don't have a suggestion how to handle that either. The Best would be everyone just stick a few weeks to the measures and diminish the countless spots to a few controllable one's. If that would be possible, we would not only reduce the cases, but also slowly minimize the spreading. May be 1-2 months, everything wouldn't be a problem any more..
Nike: just do it :)