Corona madness
So, how about this coronavirus, eh?
We currently have 959 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in The Netherlands. 12 People so far have died, all elderly, with underlying health conditions. We have a total of 1,150 beds in ICU, 70% of which are usually taken.
At first, the government advised us to wash our hands, then to stop shaking hands. Halfway through last week, that changed to a recommendation to work from home as much as possible and to avoid large gatherings, until all venues with a crowd capacity larger than 100 were closed on Friday. Football matches and other sporting events, markets, theatre shows and gigs have been cancelled, and even big weddings and funerals have been banned. We'll have to wait and see if any of these measures will have the desired effect -- we are about 14 days behind on Italy so it's possible it'll turn out to have been too little, too late.
Meanwhile, I've been working from home since last Thursday, and will be doing so next week as well. I had tickets to go see a theatre show today, to which I had been looking forward since August last year, but alas!...and I've yet to find out whether these tickets will remain valid for another date, or whether I will be reimbursed. I also had a couple of gigs coming up in the next few weeks, all of which have been postponed 6 months or more. It's going to be a busy autumn! It's fine, though, I fully understand why it has to be this way for now.
What I can't understand though, is my countrymen stockpiling supplies. I was in the supermarket just now and there were no bananas or any kind of citrus fruit; no tinned and hardly any fresh vegetables, the dairy section had been raided; and don't even get me started on the toilet paper! I even saw a man make off with the bakery section's entire stash of baguettes -- he had to pay for 53 of these at the checkout! This despite government and branch officials coming on the telly almost every hour telling people there is no need for all this panic-buying, that the supply chains haven't been affected and there's plenty of everything to go around.
We currently have 959 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in The Netherlands. 12 People so far have died, all elderly, with underlying health conditions. We have a total of 1,150 beds in ICU, 70% of which are usually taken.
At first, the government advised us to wash our hands, then to stop shaking hands. Halfway through last week, that changed to a recommendation to work from home as much as possible and to avoid large gatherings, until all venues with a crowd capacity larger than 100 were closed on Friday. Football matches and other sporting events, markets, theatre shows and gigs have been cancelled, and even big weddings and funerals have been banned. We'll have to wait and see if any of these measures will have the desired effect -- we are about 14 days behind on Italy so it's possible it'll turn out to have been too little, too late.
Meanwhile, I've been working from home since last Thursday, and will be doing so next week as well. I had tickets to go see a theatre show today, to which I had been looking forward since August last year, but alas!...and I've yet to find out whether these tickets will remain valid for another date, or whether I will be reimbursed. I also had a couple of gigs coming up in the next few weeks, all of which have been postponed 6 months or more. It's going to be a busy autumn! It's fine, though, I fully understand why it has to be this way for now.
What I can't understand though, is my countrymen stockpiling supplies. I was in the supermarket just now and there were no bananas or any kind of citrus fruit; no tinned and hardly any fresh vegetables, the dairy section had been raided; and don't even get me started on the toilet paper! I even saw a man make off with the bakery section's entire stash of baguettes -- he had to pay for 53 of these at the checkout! This despite government and branch officials coming on the telly almost every hour telling people there is no need for all this panic-buying, that the supply chains haven't been affected and there's plenty of everything to go around.