Prime Minister Mark Rutte did his best on Tuesday evening not to provide a substantive answer to that inevitable and very annoying question: what additional measures will follow if the numbers of new infections and hospital admissions continue to rise?
While the national discussion is about December easing, the virus – with nearly 1,700 corona patients in hospital and an average of 6,500 new infections per day – is forcing virologists and ministers to prepare new restrictions.
Already picked
That will be difficult: the low-hanging fruit has long been picked. So now the thorny dilemmas are on the table: will fewer guests be allowed to visit their homes in the future? Should schools still be (partially) closed? Will the so-called “non-essential stores” be locked? Is that curfew coming right?
The last few steps on the escalation ladder of the infamous corona roadmap are in sight, but Rutte absolutely did not want to anticipate it: “Of course you still look at education, which no one wants, at non-essential stores, which no one wants. But what’s the point of speculating about that? ”
Full lockdown
Perhaps few, but that is exactly what happened in the Sunday Catshuis sessions. As the second wave continues to swell, various scenarios will be presented at informal meetings in the official residence in October to contain the virus. On October 25, for example, the concept of a complete lockdown is on the table of Hugo de Jonge and Rutte and RIVM director Jaap van Dissel. The ingredients of this “confidential discussion paper”: all visits are banned, staying at home as much as possible is the norm, daycare and schools are closing, only essential travel is allowed, non-essential shops must be locked.
Such an un-Dutch emergency measure is epidemiologically very effective – the number of contacts is drastically limited – but the writers of the play outline in bold the pitch-black consequences: “they are economically disastrous”. Employment will collapse by a quarter (versus a minus of 9 percent with much less far-reaching restrictions). And then there are the legal, practical and psychological factors that make a hard and short blow difficult. Nobody wants this. And so the entire lockdown remains hidden deep in the cabinet’s toolbox, like an enormous hammer that you hardly dare to use.
Respond faster
And yet it should be, says virologist Ab Osterhaus: “Because that is how you are heading for a total lockdown. You should have reacted faster, rather took tough measures. Then you can think about relaxation sooner after a while. Now we have such high numbers again at the beginning of winter. If this continues to increase, you have no other options. ”
According to Osterhaus, the Netherlands – like many other European countries – lacks a solid strategy: “That annoys me, as if this all came out of the blue. We already knew months ago: if you relax, when winter comes and if there is no vaccine yet, the virus will take its chance again. If you have a clear strategy, you intervene earlier, then the worry does not overflow, and you don’t have to stay in lockdown for so long. ”
Rigorous approach
Professor of epidemiology Frits Rosendaal (LUMC) also sees few options other than the rigorous measures of March: “It is of course possible to enforce existing measures better, but otherwise you will still end up with the closure of certain shops, with distance education, a brake on contact professions . These are measures that can work from an epidemiological point of view, whether they are desirable is up to politicians. ”
The professor is surprised about the December discussion: “Bizarre. We all look like a child at papa government, and then we get angry if there is no relaxation. Don’t we also see the numbers and hospital figures ourselves? ”
Less anxiety
He emphasizes that measures alone do not make the difference: “It’s about our behavior. Another factor is that there is now a lot less fear than in the spring. That in itself is nice for people themselves, but the result was in March and April that we were completely stiff at home while the chance of becoming infected was smaller than now. ”
And so the cabinet is on the block when the numbers of infections and hospital admissions increase: how long can the big hammer remain unused? “We just don’t have that many other buttons to turn,” says a source at RIVM.
