For a year and a half, the corona policy was stuck together with adhesive tape – what do you want, with such a disruptive crisis without a day of preparation. But what if the tape also starts to come off?
That has been slowly but surely happening in recent weeks. Over the past twenty months, the corona policy has been based on advice from the OMT with which differences of opinion in the cabinet could be settled, on the House of Representatives that approved the measures without too many objections, on hospitals that canceled treatments to provide acute care, on the testing capacity that could still be expanded even further, on a large majority of the population who followed the rules. It was far from ideal, but the worst scenarios could be averted with it.
After twenty months, it all comes to a halt at the same time – precisely at the moment when the crisis turns out not to be over after all.
Take the OMT, which the cabinet has relied heavily on all along. ‘Science is leading’ has been the slogan all along. But sticking to that becomes a lot more difficult if the scientists no longer agree with each other. Where the OMT used to recommend specific measures, in recent months there have been more and more different packages from which the cabinet can choose. This makes it more difficult for the cabinet to protect against the OMT recommendations – political choices have to be made.
Wrong debate
This sometimes causes irritation between the cabinet and OMT members. For example, Diederik Gommers (in a hearing in the House) and Marc Bonten (at news hour) openly adhered to the attitude of politicians last week. Gommers rapped the House on the fingers: they were having the wrong debate, he thought, it should be about new measures and not about 2G – a measure that, the government also admits, is only effective with a low number of infections. You cannot both relieve care and keep sectors open and give people all the freedom not to be vaccinated, Bonten said. “Politicians really have to make choices now.”
On the other hand, ministers are annoyed by OMT members who speak out publicly about measures. For example, Gommers said a “heavy lockdown, including closing schools” should be introduced. OMT member Károly Illy wants to keep schools open at all costs – even better than curfew, he said at BNR. The cabinet now no longer receives one advice per letter, but advice from each OMT member in the media. Outgoing minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Health, CDA) reacted last week at the Binnenhof with irritation to “what individual OMT members have said at talk show tables”.
Ministers are annoyed by OMT members who speak out in talk shows
It is not only the OMT that appears to be divided. In the House, too, the cabinet can no longer count on a majority for practically every measure that is implemented, as was the case for almost two years. The government is now encountering resistance to the introduction of 2G. VVD, D66 and probably also CDA want to agree, but ChristenUnie actually does not want to and other parties that have come to the aid of the cabinet have already announced that they will vote against (Volt) or are still in doubt (PvdA). In September, the broad deployment of the corona pass, including in the catering industry, was also adopted with a small majority. In short, support for corona policy is no longer self-evident.
Solidarity is gone
The hospitals have been under the heaviest load in the past twenty months, and that is where the stretch is completely gone. There are no more but fewer IC nurses than before the corona crisis. Hospitals say they cannot scale up to 1,350 IC beds, while Minister De Jonge is counting on it.
Tensions are also rising within hospitals. Where in the first wave there was still solidarity within the hospitals, that solidarity has now sometimes disappeared, according to a report by NRC in the Zuyderland care institution. Doctors continue to stand behind their own patients and prefer not to cancel operations because corona patients need care.
The GGDs, those other important implementing organizations in the corona crisis, are also struggling with a major staff shortage. Since March 2020, those services have had to set up a completely new organization for testing, source and contact research and vaccination. But it was not possible to retain staff: in quieter periods, employees left because they were bored, and after three temporary contracts, a GGD was unable to offer a permanent contract because there was no financial cover for this. That came last week, but GGDs have already had to say goodbye to hundreds of employees. This is one of the reasons why the test capacity falls short. That happened before, but then it was always scaled up. GGDs wonder whether this can now go much further.
This makes it extra difficult for the population to adhere to one of the most important basic measures: testing for complaints.
Also read this article about the new omikron variant: New corona variant has extremely many mutations: ‘unprecedented and disturbing’
Other rules are becoming increasingly difficult to comply with after twenty months of the corona crisis, according to behavioral research by the RIVM. Keeping distance, avoiding crowds, going into quarantine: never before have people found it so difficult as now. As a result, they comply with the rules less and less well, while support for the corona policy is still fairly high.
The government had hoped to avoid stricter measures by complying with the rules. But a ‘sermon’ by Rutte and De Jonge earlier this week also did not help.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad of 27 November 2021
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of November 27, 2021
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