AD, May 2. [unfortunately article only left behind paywall at the Limburger] Reconstruction of the fight against the dotted line of ICU capacity. Rutte wonders "What if we are wrong...?" Well, what's wrong, for example, is not how you fight that battle, it's the misconception that that's the battle you have to fight.
It has not been demonstrated that the use of the ICUs in corona has a positive effect on our public health. The ICU has now saved about 650 corona lives. But 17 million people are in the, have to deal with unemployment, bankruptcy, violence, severe financial problems, etc., which also adds up firmly in sickness, well-being and mortality figures. All because of the dotted line.
One day we will calculate whether those 650 extended lives have outweighed that. The fact that this is not already taken into account is astonishing: policymakers are always peering through the same care tube. If it turns out that this price is unjustifiably high, a future generation will wonder "what were they doing!".
[EDIT: If we are going to do the math: with what numbers? See it below the article of 3 July 2020: Two months later, the disastrous figures of May 2 appear to have been drastically jacked up]
Doctor's passion
"THIS patient must be saved NOW, even if the hospital burns down soon!" I would like a doctor like that myself, but not as prime minister. Surely there must also be a hospital to be able to save those thousands of other patients. That is the true interest of public health, not the question of whether or not I myself will be saved.
The real financial consequences for citizens are yet to come, for example in the form of severe cutbacks. That means: fewer facilities, less culture, and in this context particularly interesting:less health care, structurally, for years. If the latter has no effect on public health, something strange is going on with the healthcare budget.
Letting the taxpayer and the business community pay for it is also going to be disappointing in an economy that is on the verge of collapse. So there is still something to come.
The question should also be: 'What if we are right'? Then you already know the answer: you plunge the population into a welfare trap to protect a number of possible victims. A right, warm, loving choice, it seems. Yet the only right decision may be the wrong one: at first glance a cold, heartless choice.
It's not going to be too bad!
And then you will also see that it is not all that bad. We also let ourselves be hyped up by the carnival explosion.
