A new instalment in the Perspectives on the Pandemic series:
I somehow find this gentleman less convincing than others I've seen, but he still says plenty of interesting things. I was struck particularly by his statements at 26:39:
I agree that he isn't so convincing and didn't have the patience to look at the interview until the end. I find him overoptimistic, but I really don't know. I would be so happy if it would be like he describes it in the beginning, but it doesn't match with what I feel.
My wife says that COVID 19 is the sickness of our civilization, you get it in airplanes and public transportation, inside high technology buildings... it is worse in polluted and crowded areas, football stadiums.... and it hits really badly when people don't take care themselves of their older parents.
I can't agree with the idea that the virus behaves the same way in Europe and in the USA, and the best proof of this is that it doesn't behave the same way in all the European countries, the difference between Spain and Portugal is amazing, and both countries are not so different on a cultural and climatic point of view.
I also believe that a second wave could (doesn't have to be) worst than the first one. Immunity is not guaranteed yet, and who knows how the virus will mutate. We could get a very contagious mutation that would be like a cold, so everybody could get it without harm, but that's just one of many possibilities. It's difficult to know what the requirements are for a second wave, is it just the end of the lockdown, or will spring help keep the virus quieter until the fall ?
We don't know yet if the lockdown was an overreaction, for sure we have now very few cases and we don't know how things will be when the economy will restart. In Luxembourg, we had now 2 weeks with constructions site open, and we didn't see any impact on the number of cases, of course companies opened first the small sites which are much easier to manage and require less changes in the processes.
I guess that if masks would have been available at the beginning of the pandemia, maybe lockdowns would not have been needed. If we're lucky, we can manage the 2nd wave just like Taiwan managed the 1st one.
Homes for elderly people in Luxembourg start to look like prisons, some have now containers with a Plexiglas window in the middle, so if you want to visit somebody, you have to make an appointment and have the right to be there for 30 minutes; communication works with a parlophone.
Added : I heard that in France, visits in homes for elderly happen in the park of the home, I would much prefer such a solution, but Luxembourg is a rich country, so sometimes easy and efficient solutions are very difficult to choose.
Added 2 : I believe that one of the human rights that isn't much respected now is the right to die like you wish, and I'm not talking of suicide. My mother told me yesterday that she is so old that she doesn't have to worry about Covid 19 anymore. I'm not sure that the medical staff would agree, but if this thing would be there for 3 or 4 years, maybe she's right.
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