Not only the opposition groups, but also coalition parties were critical of the corona policy on Tuesday evening. The ChristenUnie wants “the honest story” instead of “tough language”. Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge is particularly concerned about this.
The time may be in November: a quick test for the detection of the corona virus. The test result is there within the hour and should end the time-consuming fumbling around the current test policy. And a corona vaccine? If all goes well, early next year.
These are recent forecasts by Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge. This raises concerns about its feasibility. Because the track record of the corona minister – in March he succeeded the exhausted Bruno Bruins – in the field of keeping promises does not end there.
While many directors use the adage underpromise and overdeliver for safety’s sake, this seems to be reversed with the CDA party leader. De Jonge has a handful of solid promises to make.
Corona app
Take the corona apps. They would “actually form the core of the new testing policy,” he said at the beginning of April. They had to be ready that same month. An “appathon” followed in which none of the candidate apps were satisfactory. In the months that followed, the plans were drastically changed. It is now expected that the so-called CoronaMelder will be introduced within a few weeks, whereas other countries did much earlier.
De Jonge also made a mistake at the beginning of May with the use of telecom data desired by RIVM, when he suggested in a letter to the Lower House that the Dutch Data Protection Authority had approved. After an angry press release from the regulator, a rectification letter from De Jonge to the House followed.
Also remarkable was De Jong’s performance at the end of March, when he came under pressure in a parliamentary debate to promise that the IC capacity (approximately 1100 beds prior to the corona crisis) could be increased. During the debate, a Ministry official called Diederik Gommers, the chairman of the Intensive Care Association, asking if there would be 1,600 beds a few days later.
App
“Would I just promise that,” Gommers told de Volkskrant afterwards. “Even though I did not know and have no influence on the available ic beds. Then I thought: it has to be done. ” When asked, Gommers also confirmed it in an app. De Jonge then reported to the Chamber with relief: “Gommers confirms that from 1 April it can be switched up to 1600.”
This made the cold out of the air for the minister. In the meantime, Gommers was concerned whether his promise could be kept – which worked.
Last month, De Jonge announced in a letter to Parliament that the advice to infected people to go into quarantine would be converted into an obligation. If necessary, the criminal judge should get the refusers to line up.
A day later, this far-reaching infringement of freedom of movement was once again off the table, after criticism from the Lower House. De Jonge spoke of a postponement. He was to talk to the Public Prosecution Service about the method of implementation. Since then nothing has been heard of.
Test Policy
And then there are the promises regarding the employability of the GGDs and the testing policy. At a press conference in early August, he assured that the GGDs had a “good view” of the course of the infections thanks to source and contact research. A day later, the GGDs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam reported that they were limiting the investigation due to insufficient capacity.
The seeds of these problems can be traced back to De Jong’s promise at the beginning of May that everyone with complaints can be tested by 1 June. The GGDs themselves were thereby attacked and kept falling behind the facts.
At the opening of the test street at Schiphol last month, the minister promised that in the long term, “all travelers” from risk areas would also be tested at the airports of Rotterdam and Eindhoven. That expansion has not yet happened. In fact, even at Schiphol there is no longer a test street. To the surprise of the House, according to De Jonge, it had only been a test.
