In an opinion piece in his own name, pediatrician Tyl Jonckheer argues for controlled circulation of the virus among vaccinated people and no more closing classes or schools. According to Jonckheer, society is almost completely powerless against omikron and the current situation is becoming untenable. He is president of the Belgian Professional Association of Pediatricians and coordinator of the Belgian pediatric taskforce corona.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to quarantine all people who don’t want to be vaccinated and those who are at increased risk, rather than with all kinds of measures that seem to the population rather like randomly chosen palliative measures, just a discreet delay of the virus? to obtain”, he wonders in the ‘Doctors’ newspaper’.
The doctor suggests that anyone who doesn’t have any symptoms just let them work or go to school. The best way to convince unvaccinated people is to introduce strict measures that de facto exclude them from society, according to Jonckheer. The economic impact of this has yet to be calculated, “but the support among the part of the population that is vaccinated (the vast majority) will be much greater and the message simple and clear”, he insists.
The pediatrician warns that closing schools and switching to distance learning will have immense short- and long-term consequences, both for the children and for society as a whole.
obesity
Such measures increase the risk of childhood obesity, among other things. In later life, this will entail enormous additional costs for health care, he argues. The doctor also argues that a lower level of education eventually leads to more years of life lost than Covid-19, as do the consequences of depression and anxiety.
Financial savings
“By testing less, doing less contact tracing, and still allowing people to work when they have no symptoms, huge financial savings can be made,” Jonckheer concludes. “This money could then perhaps be used for psychological support for children and adults, reducing school disadvantage, intensive support for obese children, aid for the most affected sectors of society and so on.”
According to the doctor, it is quite possible that this will increase the pressure on intensive care for a short period of time, but one has to ask the question “whether society as a whole should be sacrificed to protect itself against the worst-case scenarios of the statisticians? ”, it concludes.
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Despite a steep increase in the number of infections, Steven Van Gucht is hopeful: “The number of people referred to intensive care is decreasing” (+)
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