Most of the covid patients in the intensive care units in the four major cities have a non-Western background. That is the impression van Armand Girbes, head of the IC department at the VU Medical Center, and various other doctors and professors. However, they think it is partly a communication problem, but I have my doubts about that.
The suggestion that is made is that non-western immigrants (or barely integrated new Dutch people) have not understood the message of the government and therefore end up with corona on the ICs. I think that is really nonsense and a particularly lousy assumption to start an investigation into this phenomenon.
We don’t need Turkish or Arabic subtitles at the next press conference. Those people do know that they have to keep their distance, not have ten people on the floor and that they are currently sniffing each other even more not-done is normal.
I think it is much more of a problem that Dutch people with a non-Western background often live in a small house with large families. Over time, the younger family members also want to get out and see their friends as much as possible. And I think that’s where things go wrong. They light each other, get a bit of flu and infect the rest of the family. The health for people from the underclass is relatively worse than that of the other groups, so the virus probably causes much more damage there too. There is not much they can do about it themselves, except to urge their child not to sit in a circle on the edge of the city park in a circle on the edge of the city park with the rest of the scooter-driving Netherlands.
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