Politicians are too cautious. But imagine if a cautious policy had been implemented and 23,000 corona deaths had occurred in 4 months. Then we wouldn't have been happy with the policy either. At the very beginning, it seemed that without intervention we would soon have tens of thousands or more corona deaths.
Under normal circumstances, the virus would never have achieved that growth factor. [edit June 2: it has now emerged that the virus had indeed been in the Netherlands since January and has remained inconspicuous as a regular but nasty flu]. During Carnival, it is conceivable that a few dozen people may have infected thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of others. The R0 is spread over the following weeks. That looks like an exponential R0, while in fact it was one unfortunate coincidence. That also explains why they quickly mastered it in China, for example. If the coronavirus spreads in a normal, non-partying, non-group-moving society, it is easy to track and trace and may not be that contagious at all.
Such a carnival explosion continues for a while, even with an R that is less than 1. Even when remission occurred, policymakers did not allow their insight to progress. They still think that the rapid decline of the virus is purely due to their own measures. That is not the case, even though the measures were the only option at that time.
- No group meetings because then the same thing happens again as during carnival.
- Where there is a higher risk of contamination, for example at hairdressers: regulate with face masks and/or 1.5 meters, but above all:
- Upgrade the ventilation in rooms where more than 5 people are present for a longer period of time. Too little attention is paid to humidity and removal of contaminated air.
We see the latter going wrong in nursing homes, for example. We will have to accept that the elderly are more likely to succumb to the virus, but we can blame ourselves if they simply participate in the infection statistics. They must be better protected and the rest must get back to work, taking into account the points mentioned.
Hopefully, herd immunity can be accelerated in a humane way so that we can soon visit concerts again, wearing face masks, in well-ventilated spaces. That would be a nice step.
