Last Friday (26.11), here in the Netherlands was a day of historic proportions (nope, not Black Friday): another press conference of the current resigned government, with another set of measures (maatregelen) anti Corona announced.
To be noted is that the people interested in watching such events are the ones interested in how much damage will be inflicted further by so called measures. Any other reasons, I think, they are long gone. But anyway, new measures basically adding nothing to the mix (unless you consider closing again restaurants and museums at 5.00pm a real measure). This conference was nothing more than a PR stunt that shows the government is doing something and it's taking the whole situation seriously (new records of infection numbers are reported on a daily basis now).
The Health Minister is playing the ball in a cleaver way:
People who have elected not to get vaccinated against Covid-19 should not be directly blamed for the current peak number of coronavirus infections and Covid-19 hospitalizations, and the restrictions imposed on Dutch society as a result,
Which seems to be fair at this point, although you might notice there the directly blamed flavor of the phrase. But he also says:
... if the vaccination rate were higher, the current reality might be different.
If other words, the change will be done by the remaining unvaccinated, rather than the big chunk of vaccinated people. Which of course, it's pure nonsense.
From official numbers, let's see once again the vaccination per age groups:
As you notice, over the age of 50 the percentage looks really good! And the rest, not to be ignored.
But still, 1 person in a group of 10 is to be pointed at, since the reality will be ... different.
Prime Minister Rutte (a gentleman who "won" the elections in March 2021 with 20% of the votes and he's incapable to form a government up to this date) adds:
There are also vaccinated people in hospital, but usually only if they already have other conditions
Which might be true, but it's also bullshit since the same rule can be applied to the unvaccinated people as well. Rutte doesn't mention it, but he insists you have more chances to get into hospital if you didn't take the shot.
He's not mentioning that the pool of unvaccinated is way much smaller than the other category.
He's also funny (or he tries to):
I would prefer to vaccinate people myself, but you need training for that.
In translation: I would prefer to forcibly vaccinate all those annoying unvaccinated pests.
There is also a silver lining in all this. Being inspired by our German neighbors, De Jonge states:
By the end of this winter, everyone will probably be protected, by vaccination or by contracting the virus.
Jens Spahn, the German minister for health, said the same thing not so long ago, but it was like this:
"Germans will be "vaccinated, recovered, or dead" by the end of the winter."
