Martijn gives a brief overview of the figures and the latest scientific information from home and abroad as baggage to watch the press conference well prepared. With this knowledge you can better test the veracity of the statements of Rutte and De Jonge. We can now reasonably predict what will happen at the press conference based on what we have seen on TV and in the newspapers recently. However, this information was not and is not substantiated in any way. The information below is.
- The protection of the Corona vaccinations decreases over time and after just under 5 months is lower than the average protection of people who have not been vaccinated
The declining protection follows from the information from the scientific reports from Qatar, the U.S., England and Sweden. That the average protection of a vaccinated person dips below the average protection of an unvaccinated person is shown in the figures from the United Kingdom. - In the UK, where almost everyone over 30 was vaccinated more than 5 months ago, the chance of getting infected as a vaccinated person is *higher* than the chance of getting infected as an unvaccinated person
See weekly figures from the United Kingdom. The specific table can be found at page 19 of this report - In vaccinated people who have become infected, the peak viral load in the nose is on average as high or even higher than in the unvaccinated. It follows that vaccinated people are *not* less contagious
Among other things this report in The Lancet shows this: "Although peak viral load did not differ by vaccination status or variant type, it increased modestly with age" - The protection of the vaccines against serious illness also decreases over time. This increases the percentage of vaccinated people in hospitals
This is discussed with citations in this article by Maurice de Hond - In the UK, over 64% of all people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 are fully vaccinated
See the aforementioned article by Maurice de Hond - In Flanders this percentage is even more than 70%- Current figures in the Netherlands *do not* indicate that this is different in the Netherlands. There *are* no current figures. These are not provided by RIVM
See for example here for the Flemish figures. The last time RIVM published figures was on October 14 over the period 1 September to 3 October. These figures were not broken down by region or by date. Despite urgent requests from the 2nd chamber, no new figures have been announced. - For most measures, such as face masks, Corona passes or the closure of schools, there is no scientific evidence that these contribute in any way to the prevention of hospital admissions
For this I refer to the very strong contribution of Ronald Meester, professor of Mathematics and Probability Theory at the VU, in the book Pandemic chaos - There is also no scientific evidence for the 1.5m. The measures now proposed therefore lack any scientific basis
The 1.5 meters is based on the idea that the Sars-Cov-2 virus would spread through larger droplets. However, it has now been proven that this virus spreads via aerosols. These are so small that they can continue to move freely in the air (see, for example, the "smoke" you exhale on a cold morning). Probability theory makes it clear that in a virus that spreads via aerosols, spread via larger droplets cannot play a significant role.
So much for the facts. Of course, based on these facts, it is very likely that a majority of all hospital admissions in the Netherlands have now been fully vaccinated, but because the figures are not provided in the Netherlands, I cannot posit that as "fact".
No attention to the real risk group
The main problem with this whole discussion is that it diverts attention from the group that should really be the focus of attention. All this whole pandemic, we see largely the same group that ends up in the hospital and in the ICU because of Covid-19. These are mainly:
- 50+ -ers (78%)
- With underlying causes, in which mainly 'diseases of affluence' such as overweight/obesity and type 2 diabetes
- On average, more men than women
- People who use an above-average amount of alcohol
- People with a shortage of vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc and selenium
- In particular, people with a non-white skin color produce less vitamin D under the influence of the sun and this group is therefore overrepresented in hospital admissions
For people who do not meet the above profile, it is completely irrelevant whether you have been vaccinated or not. The chance that you will end up in the hospital is smaller than the chance that you will end up in the hospital because of, for example, a traffic accident. Many of the people in the risk group do not have to be in it if they make some changes in their lifestyle and diet and possibly take specific supplements, but there is no attention for this.
And no attention to the real problem
In addition, the point remains that the problem in hospitals is not caused by Corona, but by scaling down the available care for years. At the moment, for example, we have about 400 fewer ICU beds available than in March 2020. Therein lies the real problem. Again, nothing is being done about this.
The Doctors Covid Collective makes a clear appeal regarding the last point: How do we tackle the capacity crisis in healthcare structurally?
