Cabinet’s long-term policy against Corona: Make sure you don’t get infected

Sources from The Hague reported this to De Telegraaf.

Instead of a strong fist from above, the Dutch will now have to take action themselves to make sure they don’t injure themselves or each other. This is a clear departure from the policy previously pursued by the Council of Ministers, in which resolute measures were taken and closed several times to slow the spread of Corona.

The government expects people – who have become familiar with basic procedures two years after the epidemic – to ensure that they do not become infected. Ventilate and wear masks when necessary, and maybe not everyone gathers together at the bar in the winter. The Cabinet hopes that the Netherlands will be wise enough to think about this.

Companies are also expected to protect their employees. This means that people should not be forced to show up in case of complaints or illness, something that often happened “pre-corona”.

Corona support for businesses – which will disappear on April 1 – will also be a thing of the past if it is up to the Cabinet. The subsidy injection was necessary at the time to save sick entrepreneurs, but it also appears within the Cabinet that it had an unhealthy effect as it kept companies artificially struggling.

Test in GP

According to government sources, GGD’s testing facilities will also soon be scaled back. Therefore, corona testing becomes the responsibility of the citizen himself. This can be done with known self-exams, but The Hague is also looking into the possibility of this being done by general practitioners. This way, people will still be able to get proof of recovery, which of course is not possible with self-testing.

When the GGD stops doing large-scale testing, the Cabinet will want to monitor the spread of the virus and the emergence of new variants in a different way. Wastewater monitoring, which is already done on a random basis, can provide a solution to this. The Department of Health, Welfare and Sports is also looking at a “broader way of modeling” corona spread, because RIVM models have often proven inaccurate in the past.

Shooting shots

Although the new Treasury line is based on optimism that we can control Corona, there are also concerns. The warning: “Corona will not go away, not the flu.”

The emergence of a new variable, for example, may mean that measures will have to be taken again in the long run. Cabinet also hopes there will be more enthusiasm for booster injections. Enthusiasm for this is waning rapidly, possibly due to the moderation of the omicron variable. Even among the vulnerable and the elderly, the government is seeing that the number of people who come in for a frequent shot has gone down.

The long-term plan to be released next week by the Minister for Combating the Coronavirus, Ernst Kuipers, is part of a broader change of course. He has previously declared that with respect to him, restrictions in society should not be the dominant factor. “We are moving from risk exclusion to more control and to a lifestyle as normal as possible,” Kuipers said earlier. Keeping the community open should be the starting point.