Jop de Vrieze


“Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said no one will be intentionally exposed to this virus.”

Jop de Vrieze

Global Public Health Professor Devi Sridhar What should we do to save and improve WHO? What has made the difference between the strategy in countries such as England, Sweden and the Netherlands and many others across Europe? And what lessons from the first months should we apply now? I asked Devi Sridhar, professor of Global Public Health. Reporters Online exclusive interview It’s quite a miracle that in between all her other duties, Devi Sridhar found the opportunity to talk to

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Covid: Why the Western world is so reluctant to learn from Asia

Jop de Vrieze

The corona crisis painfully exposes the vulnerabilities of the usually dominant West. Not the virus itself, but society will determine how we get out of this. (Translation of article published in De Groene Amsterdammer on May 27th 2020) On Tuesday May 20th, a remarkable situation occurred during the technical briefing on the coronavirus in the Dutch House of Representatives. In reaction to messages from the attentive twitterer Edwin Veldhuizen, Jaap van Dissel (Director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Control

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Why the corona crisis did not eradicate antivax sentiments

Jop de Vrieze

The corona crisis shows us what a virus can do when no vaccine is available. What does this do to the sentiments around vaccination? It’s early February and the first son of Frederike and Peter is born: Tim. As far as Peter is concerned, Tim gets his vaccinations when the time is right. But Frederike has doubts. She’s surrounded by people who are ‘fiercely anti’ and, to a certain degree, she understands them. But she also calls herself rational, not

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Not the virus will determine our future, but the way society is dealing with it

Jop de Vrieze

Anthropologist Agustin Fuentes emphasizes COVID-19 is not just a biological event For months, we’ve been obsessed by the virus. But according to Agustin Fuentes, COVID-19 is about our social, economical, political and health infrastructures. We should no longer regard COVID-19 as a biological event. At least, that’s what anthropologist Agustin Fuentes of Notre Dame University in Indiana, argues. Of course, he recognizes the virus SARS-CoV-2 is a biological entity, and COVID-19 is characterized by significant morbidity and mortality. But we

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‘I totally don’t understand that people in Europe don’t wear masks’

Jop de Vrieze

'Korean Dr Fauci' Woo-Joo Kim about his country's approach Should western countries adopt the approach of countries like South Korea? Or is their success too particular or even temporary? The ‘Korean Dr. Fauci’ Woo-Joo Kim explains his country’s strategy, its strengths and its weaknesses. And he shows his marvel about some of the western measures – or lack of them. Reporters Online exclusive The international press has lauded the Korean approach of the novel coronavirus, based on mask wearing, mass

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Guest post: A comparison of coronavirus approaches

Jop de Vrieze

Last week I was pointed at an interesting analysis of the global coronavirus approaches. The author, dr. Daxin Ni, a deputy director of the public health emergency center at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and former steering committee member of WHO's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), compared two general approaches: the SARSlike and pandemic flu-like approach. Although I want to emphasize this is not my analysis and I do not necessarily agree with all

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Can a century-old TB vaccine steel the immune system against the new coronavirus?

Jop de Vrieze

Science Magazine / sciencemag.org Researchers in four countries will soon start a clinical trial of an unorthodox approach to the new coronavirus. They will test whether a century-old vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), a bacterial disease, can rev up the human immune system in a broad way, allowing it to better fight the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 and, perhaps, prevent infection with it altogether. The studies will be done in physicians and nurses, who are at higher risk of

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“Why isn’t my child being tested?”

Jop de Vrieze

The corona crisis from within At the daycare of the three-year-old son of Jop de Vrieze and Zvezdana Vukojevic, a boy turned out to be infected with the corona virus. In the meantime, the epidemic is also unfolding in the Netherlands. Originally posted in De Groene Amsterdammer (in Dutch) The phones vibrate almost simultaneously. At 4:22 PM on Friday afternoon, we receive an email from our childcare Compananny with the subject: "Parent has corona virus infection". We quick scan: "Unfortunately

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How does someone become a conspiracy thinker?

Jop de Vrieze

A HEALTHY DOSE OF SUSPICION Until recently, conspiracy thinkers were mainly studied to find out what derailed them. But a new generation of researchers is taking them more seriously. 'The important thing is not whether the theories are correct, but where the distrust is coming from." Originally published in Dutch in EOS Magazine 20-2-2018 The 1990s. The age of The X-Files and other tv series full of dark practices, extraterrestrial life and government cover-ups. The young Jaron Harambam (1983), who

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First malaria vaccine rolled out in Africa—despite limited efficacy and nagging safety concerns

Jop de Vrieze

A SHOT OF HOPE Published in Science Magazine, November 29, 2019 MALAWI—In a small room at the Phalula Health Centre in southern Malawi's Balaka district, two young mothers are sitting on a wooden bench, each with a 5-month-old baby on their lap. Across from them, behind a desk, sits Alfred Kaponya, a community health worker. A colleague is busy preparing a vaccine, tapping the syringe to dislodge bubbles. Kaponya explains the procedure to the women, writes down the vaccines' serial

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