Photo: Flickr, Olgierd Rudak, (CC BY 2.0)

 

 

 

Dutch Govt: “Wear A Mask!”; Chief ‘Scientist’ – Don’t Bother!

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

 

 

Though I don’t follow the news in the Netherlands much, I happened to see something the other day that I think is a “beautiful” example of why so many countries get their “measures” wrong, their lockdowns, facemasks etc.

 

First of all, they all screwed up their initial lockdowns, which pretty much were March-June all over. And second lockdowns are more something they like to threaten people with than actually considered options. Unless things really get out of hand, if for instance numbers of deaths suddenly increase a lot, but given the change towards infections occurring in much younger people than before, that is not likely. Plus, of course, no-one wants even more economic damage.

 

And now what you see is the politicians don’t know what to do anymore. They turn to “their scientists” again, but many have before given advice that is different from what they say now, that hasn’t worked, and that often contradicts what their colleagues in other countries say. And so everyone starts blaming “the people”.

 

But the people have mostly obeyed the lockdowns and become experts themselves, or so they think, and seen them go nowhere. That makes the positions of politicians and “experts” much weaker than it was 6-7 months ago. It’s about credibility, and they’ve squandered it. Why “must we listen to the scientists” if that does us no good?