“Young people who held lockdown parties are now on ic” | Abroad

That is what the famous Flemish virologist Marc Van Ranst says in TV program De Afspraak. According to him, of the young people who are on intensive care services and are being given artificial respiration on Wednesday, some took part in the “lockdown parties” of Friday March 13, just before midnight, when the strict measures came into effect.

The mentality of the Flemish youth quickly became an issue. “The lockdown parties are incomprehensible and shameful,” pulmonologist Ingel Demedts told De Telegraaf.

“Influencers are a problem”

According to virologist Van Ranst, young people still do not believe that the coronavirus is serious. Youth is hardly reached; Van Ranst asks influencers to educate the youth with, for example, YouTube videos. “It has to be made clear: this is not a computer game. People really die here. ”

Today, Dutch influencer Paul Goudsmit, who as King Alert has 176,000 followers on YouTube, also argued that the seriousness of the situation does not get through to young people. He points to influencers in an article on the opinion page of De Telegraaf. “Children are being brainwashed by their idols. It doesn’t matter what a virologist says? It doesn’t matter what politicians say either…. Because according to their idols, “it is not so bad after all.”

Festivals “impossible”

Van Ranst further states that large events will be impossible for a long time. “It will be possible to roll back many measures once we have seen the peak of the epidemic.” But that un-lockdown will “happen in slices,” he says. “Major mass manifestations are about to come to an end.” That a festival like Tomorrowland continues, “is not even very unlikely, that is impossible.”

Van Ranst is a welcome guest in talk shows in Belgium and now has his own song.

In the latest corona update: the confusion about the number of hospital admissions in the Netherlands. Furthermore, many more corona news. Listen the podcast here, below or via your own podcast app.

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