Earlier this week our (Dutch) Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Deputy Prime Minister Hugo de Jonge held another presser, with bad news and some small eases of measures, but not the promised lifting of our ongoing curfew!
photo from rtlnieuws.nl
Here in the Netherlands we currently have the most stringent measures across Europe; Amongst them are flailing closings of schools and shops, lockdowns, once touted as ‘intelligent’ and the most recent addition; a nightly curfew!
Reasons for continuing and adding to these measures are often found in trends ‘not dropping fast enough’, so even when numbers of hospitalizations are flatlining or dropping, numbers of measured ‘infections’ are steady, we get lines like: “We are cautiously optimistic, but..”
“If we loosen measures now we expect ‘the English variant’ to cause a sharp rise” (paraphrase)
We have seen endless variation in reasons why measures, like the critically received curfew, should continue.. This week again we were explained that we need to attain measures, extending the deadlines, but this time the reason was a new one: behavioral- ‘Compliance numbers’ (for measures) that were supposedly dropping!
Now I’m always interested in data, so I decided to look for these numbers and got at them after some calls; Sad to say that in my (statistically trained-) expert eyes, the trends are anything but worrying(!) None of the monitored topics are significantly ‘dropping-out’, in fact while one is slightly lower compared to the previous poll, some others are on the rise. Here you can look at the data yourself; Compliance and Support | Dashboard coronavirus | Rijksoverheid.nl
Here is our Deputy PM replying to a press-member and stating a bold-faced lie: Time-coded link to this weeks preconference of Rutte en De Jonge
A member of the press ask Hugo de Jonge: “Looking at the current numbers we are doing more than is justified based on infection numbers, how do you really feel about this?”
After admitting this is a political choice he charges the following: “If you look at the current compliance numbers you can see them going down ‘quite rapidly’..”
-Is he hoping we won’t look them up? Did he even look at the numbers himself?!
Go look at the stats yourself, they are provided in plotted graphs. The only subject that is seeing a small drop is our ‘one guest per household-rule’, which is a strong suggestion and not an enforceable law(!)
Besides the lie and the data; Why are we even accepting continuation of measures based on a behavioral study that polls an extremely small group of below 5000 respondents? (!)
Liar