Lieven Annemans, health economist, writes that in an opinion piece about corona “The pendulum has turned”. A hundred doctors and nurses have already asked for a reverse lockdown in an open letter. Among them health economist Lieven Annemans: “There has been an overreaction for fear of a new wave. That’s human. But one should no longer delay. ”
Annemans makes a comparison between the attention currently paid to the number of corona infections and the number of pneumonia.
“Imagine that VTM Nieuws opens every evening with the figures for the number of bacterial pneumonia in the past week: another 300 new infections. And the number of hospital admissions in the past week has risen to 120. There are 10 deaths. After which an expert reveals that every death is one too many. A witness tells how difficult the rehabilitation is. A mayor comes to say that he is already obliged to wear masks everywhere in his municipality. This sounds unlikely, but the figures from this example are realistic. Every year there are about 6,000 hospital admissions for pneumonia, which is associated with about 500 deaths. As a society we accept that risk. But with 20 new hospital admissions per day due to corona, the world is still turned upside down ”.
(Read more below this tweet)
The balance skips. Plea for it #healthy understanding now on #vrtnws . https://t.co/QSuWY0l3pq
– Lieven Annemans (@LievenAnnemans) August 26, 2020
“Learning to live with the new corona virus”
“We are a little too blinded by that virus and have lost the overview”, is Annemans’ conclusion. “We have to learn to live with the new corona virus. That may sound fatalistic, but it is certainly not” he emphasizes.
According to Annemans, much more is now being tested, “So you cannot simply compare the figures on the number of confirmed cases with the figures from the spring”. At the time, only people who were so sick that they had to be hospitalized were tested.
Annemans clarifies: “I am not a non-believer. I still support the general lockdown that was declared in March. We were not aware of the virus and terrifying images from Italy showed that we had to protect our hospital capacity. We have now seen that the lockdown also caused more depression, more poverty and that, among other things, a number of new cancer cases have not been diagnosed. […] In a narrow street, where there is a lot of walking, a mouth mask is needed. But certainly not on an empty street, where you walk alone. I hope that a number of cities and municipalities will see tomorrow that they will better revoke the general mouth mask obligation. There is no scientific basis for that ”.
“It becomes dangerous when too many people say foert”
Annemans fears that with too strict measures you risk excessive fear and too much foert reactions: “It gets just dangerous when too many people say ‘Foert, I don’t care anymore. I don’t believe it anyway. You should avoid such reactions ”.
Together with a hundred other doctors and medics, Annemans signed a letter requesting a reverse lockdown. The signatories also warn against viewing the corona vaccine as the ultimate exit strategy.
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