This is going to be like turning around an oil tanker. It follows six months of dissing of face masks by public figures apparently impervious to evidence that contradicted their prior convictions, from the head of the public health agency down.
Until August 17, the public health agency's advice to elderly care homes was that masks were unnecessary for staff in brief contact with patients, such as for short conversations. This advice was quietly changed in August without informing care providers nos.nl/nieuwsuur/arti…
The worried partner of a nurse wrote to me to point out RIVM advice that masks make people careless was superseded by their own research suggesting that they actually make people more careful, but that the guidelines weren't updated rivm.nl/documenten/cov… nos.nl/artikel/234172…
Meanwhile the head of the Dutch public health agency yesterday gave an interview to the national broadcaster saying face masks have "exceptionally little effect" on the spread of the virus
As I wrote here, lack of face masks is one of the factors behind the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's forecast that without a course change, the Netherlands will have one of the highest death rates in the world by January. irishtimes.com/news/world/eur…
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