Today, the Dutch government (Kuipers) will announce that almost all measures will be removed. People will be encouraged to resume “normal”.
No, it can't.
The pandemic brought to surface everything that’s broken about our government, institutions, neighbors and friends. 🧵
Dropping masking requirements
and 1.5 m distance will continue the economic and socially damaging opening-closing rollercoaster.
Everything we take for granted— healthcare, education, public transportation etc is no longer properly functional. They’re destroying it.
🧵2
They’ve shattered what ever remaining trust people had in this government.
We’re not all just going back to “normal”. The high-risk aren’t going to patronize restaurants, clubs and bars, the newly disabled aren’t going back to work, and the dead aren’t going to resurrect.
They can’t continue mandating people’s behavior. It is unsustainable.
They can address that #COVIDisAirborne, set ventilation standards for all buildings, monitor C02, and enforce high filtration masks until the danger passes.
Actually @ErnstKuipersVWS, #covid19 didn't shatter Dutch society. It was the deliberate choice of this government to pursue a mass infection policy. The mass deaths, long-term disability, and economic damage are direct consequences of the actions of Rutte et al. #persconferentie
It’s absolutely brilliant to end free tests for all. It ensures the number of people with Covid-19 goes down.
Anyone else finds it disturbing that the Dutch Prime Minister had yet to acknowledge all the #COVID19 deaths and “excess mortality” (highest in the EU)? That there hasn’t been a single moment of mourning? 🧵
Because what is glaringly missing is a public acknowledgment of the collective grief and mourning from these traumatic 700+ days. That many of us have lost not only loved ones, but our own selves, our health and the lives that we used to have. 🧵2
While the NL government is gaslighting us with “freedoms” again, what they’re not telling us is what is most haunting — the dead can’t resurrect, the newly disabled can’t go back to work, and many of us are still very aware that the pandemic isn’t over yet. This isn’t normal.🧵3
I can’t wax poetic about missing my “normal” Dutch life b/c it wasn’t all that wonderful. Village life was socially isolating. School was a bizarre alienating place. The only part we miss is the freedom of traveling to different places, exploring museums and vacations. 🧵
There’s nothing much left to return to. People demonstrated willful ignorance, trivializing this virus and long-term sequelae and cowardly accepting all the lies and misinformation. There was no uproar that thousands of elderly and sick died from #COVID19, alone and uncounted.🧵2
Since the start of the pandemic, the NL has never made it safe for high-risk people or for anyone for that matter. They told us a hundred million lies — wash your hands, keep 1.5 m distance, children are immune and masks don’t work…while everyone breathed in the virus. 🧵3
Gentle reminder whether your child or family has been infected or not during this #omicron#massdisablingevent, none of us will come out of this unscathed. There’s no “winning” if the vast majority have been traumatized by illness, disability and death. 🧵
Except for a few exceptions since March 2020, my family and I have been strictly living the quarantine life. We’re one of the few families who may not have been infected, but the trauma of social isolation will take time to heal. We can never be part of this society again 🧵2
There’s this pervasive cognitive dissonance and the lack of empathy for others that I cannot adapt to. People here refuse to comprehend that there’s more than death — there’s the real threat of permanent disability and chronic illnesses. 🧵3
Living in pandemic NL is bizarre and soul-crushing. We pay an obscene amount of taxes but have no safe access to schools, hospitals/clinics, grocery stores, or parks. Even getting vaccinated is a serious transmission risk when centers ask people to remove their masks post-shot 🧵
The November peak was not from #omicron — it was from #delta. A “lockdown” and school closure was to prevent the hospitals from collapsing. Our #omicron peak will happen the moment they soon open schools with no mitigations upon societal pressure 🧵2
We’re all expected to get infected and re-infected with this neurotrophic virus. For those who become permanently disabled or die, it’s “helaas pindakaas”. We’re all on our own. This isn’t solidarity or a social democracy but we’re still expected to pay up to live here. 🧵3
A reason why I am so vocal about protecting children from this neurodegenerative virus that causes overall system damage is b/c when I was a child, not a single adult spoke out against all the abuse that my siblings and I experienced. I promised myself at 7, it stops with me. 🧵
At 7, I had more sense than all the adults around me. It took a pandemic for me to realize that many “adults” don’t speak out not because they can’t recognize the danger or dysfunction, but lack the courage to stare it down and fight against it 🧵2
The deliberate mass infection of children with #SARSCoV2 and the overwhelming consent from parents in the NL is extremely triggering. It’s morally bankrupt to send children to unsafe schools. Some don't have a choice but the majority simply don't want to be inconvenienced. 🧵3