The new corona measures are widely criticized, including from virological advisers in OMT. Support for the restrictions is therefore smaller than in the spring.
The clock has instinctively been turned back to April: the ever-increasing contamination figures left the cabinet with no other option on Monday evening than taking firm national measures. But unlike in the spring, the unanimity has now disappeared. MPs and scientists fear that the cabinet is not intervening hard enough.
The new measures should just give the corona virus a boost, so that it will slowly die out in the coming weeks and months. Minister Hugo de Jonge (healthcare) writes to the House of Representatives that thanks to the restrictions for the catering industry, sports public and parties in the domestic circle, the reproduction factor r must be 0.9. That is just below r = 1, where each sick person infects one other person, and the spread of the virus remains the same.
The OMT wanted stricter measures
The Outbreak Management Team (OMT), the virologists and epidemiologists who advise the cabinet, should therefore have been a lot stricter. According to them, the government should aim for an r of 0.8 or lower. With an r of 0.9, the number pops over 1 again. The OMT therefore advised a curfew in the big cities, closing changing rooms in sports facilities and further limiting the group size for indoor gatherings to twenty people. The cabinet ultimately opted for thirty people. There is also an increasingly louder call for mouth caps. The cabinet does not want an obligation yet and has opted to place that responsibility with retailers.
In the spring, the criticism was still – also within the OMT – that the cabinet was blind to the epidemiological advice. Also listen to economists and behavioral scientists, the virologists found. When the cabinet did so, it led to the first – hesitant – relaxation.
That sentiment has changed. A reconstruction by de Volkskrant shows that members of the OMT do not always feel taken seriously by the cabinet. The decisions of Monday evening would already have been taken at the Catshuis on Sunday by the cabinet and head of infectious diseases of the RIVM Jaap van Dissel, after which the OMT was presented with a fait accompli on Monday. According to anonymous OMT members, the cabinet is too guided by the so-called rescue team, in which behavioral scientists, mathematicians and economists provide additional advice.
Less motivated
On Monday evening, medical microbiologist and OMT member Jan Kluytmans already asked questions about the new restrictions. He doubts whether they will be sufficient, because the population seems less motivated to comply with them than in the spring. Prime Minister Rutte said during the press conference that this has been taken into account. “We are not naive.”
Nevertheless, after the regional approach barely got off the ground, the government is again taking a risk with the national measures. It hopes that the restrictions will become visible in the contamination figures in ten to fourteen days. If that succeeds, Hugo de Jonge said on Monday, the current measures could perhaps be relaxed again in three weeks. OMT chairman Jaap van Dissel was more careful in the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon. According to him, it will take “at least three weeks” for the numbers to allow any relief. Aiming for an r of 0.9 reduces the chance of easing.
That will probably also be the tenor of some of the opposition, on Wednesday during the parliamentary debate about the corona virus. Since the summer, unanimity about the virus approach has definitely disappeared from the Binnenhof. Just like last week, De Jonge and Prime Minister Mark Rutte will again be given a very critical House of Representatives. Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA) said on Monday evening at “Jinek” that he “holds his heart”. He also wonders whether these measures will be sufficient. SP and GroenLinks also believe that the cabinet provides too little clarity, for example about mouth caps.
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