Masks, austerity, and national character: on COVID-19 policies in the Netherlands and the US

On August 28, the UvA American Studies program’s Manon Parry was a guest on the FiveThirtyEight podcast, to discuss governmental responses to COVID-19 in the Netherlands and the United States. The conversation is wide-ranging: from Dutch refrains of an “intelligent lockdown” to American refrains of “individualism,” from mask mandates (and the inconsistencies thereof) to the reactions against governmental policies in both contexts.

The conversation arrives at profound questions: on the politics of austerity and end-of-life care, and what is hidden by the stories we tell about “national character.”

The interview with Parry begins in the podcast’s second half.

Just Because We Can Get Reinfected With COVID-19 Doesn’t Mean We Can’t Beat It