The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) takes into account that the partial lockdown will also still be in effect in December, RIVM boss Jaap van Dissel told NOS on Saturday. The cabinet hopes that after four weeks a trend break in the corona figures will be realized, so that easing can take place.
The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) is taking into account that the partial lockdown will also be in effect in December, RIVM boss Jaap van Dissel told NOS on Saturday. The cabinet hopes that after four weeks a trend break in the corona figures will be realized, so that easing can take place.
Van Dissel suspects that this estimate is too optimistic. The health expert assumes that there will be an increase in the number of positive tests in the near future, before any decrease will follow. Only then could easing be implemented slowly.
Head of Modeling Infectious Diseases Jacco Wallinga of the RIVM is also guarding against optimism. He points to earlier packages of measures, which later turned out to be insufficiently effective. “You just can’t run that risk,” he tells the broadcaster.
The experts also look back on the package of measures announced at the end of September. Those corona measures should have resulted in a decrease in the number of positive tests this week, but they did not.
‘Package of measures at the end of September was quite proportional’
According to Wallinga, the Outbreak Management Team took the most negative scenarios into account and the advice to the cabinet was “quite proportional”. However, the measures taken focused on the behavior of people, who then did not adjust their behavior as during the first corona wave. The new measures are less dependent on behavior, Wallinga said.
The RIVM experts take into account that the package of measures at the end of September had little effect, but emphasize that this cannot be said out loud yet. “We have given our best estimate. We could have recommended much stronger measures, but you don’t know how that will turn out.”
