Did he have corona himself? Probably yes, 58-year-old Bruno Bruins answers as he opens the door to his new office. “It was in the spring of 2020, just after I had stopped as a minister. My wife and I have not been very ill luckily. We stayed inside, it was over in a few days.”
Bruins has just started his new job: councilor at the Council of State. His office is still white and empty, walls cry out for some works of art. With music by Nile Rodgers, his great idol, in the background, the former minister wants to look back one more time on that early period of corona. The period that changed his life – and that of millions of Dutch people – so much.
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How are you now?
“Very good. After I crashed, I slept for three months. Rest, that’s all I wanted. In the summer of 2020 things started to get better and I started working again at the public transport company HTM in The Hague. I love that you walk out the door in the morning and can participate in a team again.”
You just popped out, do you still think about that often?
“I can’t remember the moment when I fell. I did get up. I just collapsed during a long corona debate. I was received very well in the Kamerrestaurant. ‘Colatje, Mr Bruins?’, it sounded. Not much later my wife called. My youngest had seen it happen on TV: ‘Daddy is not well.’ I went home with my driver. When I closed the front door at home, there was that silence. That silence, that was very tasty.”
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Where did it go wrong?
“I was always a good sleeper, but at one point I kept waking up at 4 a.m. I know exactly what radio programs are on in the middle of the night. When I fell down, I just wanted to sleep. I have weeks I slept during the day on my couch in my study I started on the first page of 20 times The Eighth Life. Beautiful book by the way.
Did it feel like failure?
“Yes. Or, well, I found it very annoying that I had to leave the team. The corona crisis had made our ministers a close team. We really did this together as a cabinet. I sat next to Ferd Grapperhaus during the cabinet meeting. “We got on well, a joke was never far away. We called each other Snuf and Snuitje. But then I was suddenly out and I became a spectator. An ordinary citizen who had to read the corona news in the newspaper.”
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Bruins became Minister for Medical Care in the Rutte III cabinet in October 2017. He can’t quite remember the first time the word ‘corona’ was mentioned. It must have been some day in late December 2019, or early 2020. On January 28 of that year, Covid-19 was placed on the A-list of notifiable infectious diseases. All kinds of corona cases appeared in surrounding countries, we had to wait for our first ‘patient zero’.
And suddenly there was that note about our ‘first case’ during a live broadcast of the NOS.
“I still feel that moment. I was sitting on hot coals. There was a TV broadcast that evening of February 27, and we knew that a person in the country had one positive test. At that time, two positive tests were needed. I insisted that the patient knew first, plus his family, the mayor and the hospital in question. It was really a coincidence that that news came in on the broadcast.”
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What did you think?
“Now it’s really started. Now it’s getting massive. You go into overdrive. So many things had to be arranged. In healthcare, in politics and with the media.”
Do you have ‘patient zero’ called?
“Yes. It was Joost, built in 1963. You will never forget that. We had a very nice and sober conversation. He was in hospital and was receiving good care. I remember that he was mainly afraid of one thing: the media hectic “He wanted to protect his family from all that attention. He had kids in high school.”
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In the beginning there was a great shortage of protective materials. What went wrong?
“My phone rang throughout the day and I received e-mails about mouth caps and protective equipment. Also from friends. You tried to do everything necessary and to gain insight into supply and demand. It was so intense and chaotic.”
“I remember well that a truck with protective equipment was stopped at the border with France. The French wanted our stuff. Shortly afterwards I had an EU meeting and I wanted to address my French counterpart. But he was deliberately late. and consciously ran off earlier.”
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The approach to corona took up all the time of the former minister. Bruins was working on it day and night. Coordinating the distribution of protective equipment, the long parliamentary debates and the growing criticism: everything was dominated by the pandemic. And then there were the corona press conferences, which millions of people watched.
Do you like the spotlight?
“No. Not at all. I also feel exactly that lectern behind which I stood with that edge that your pen rolls over. And that hole where a glass of water could hardly fit in. I remember well the press conference in which we held the first lockdown I thought the text was so clinical, so I added a sentence ten minutes before time: ‘Watch each other a bit’. When I saw those words on a sign along the highway, I thought: I’ve got that right done.”
Another parliamentary inquiry is coming, what should you have done differently?
“It is certainly good to evaluate. I thought communication was very important. But does the message also get through? That is another chapter and that should definitely be looked at. I tried to tell as much as possible what I knew, but a lot of things I didn’t know either. Tomorrow you will always know more and you don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe I should have been more open about that. Under these kinds of circumstances, you don’t really have a conversation about how to conduct the debate with the House of Representatives. that should be the subject of a possible survey.”
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Bruins was succeeded by Martin van Rijn, a PvdA member. He had no involvement in that, but is very grateful to him for it. After that Hugo de Jonge became the responsible minister. Bruins does not want to comment on his substantive performances. Because: not appropriate, he thinks. He does, however, occasionally text De Jonge and watch the corona debates.
How often do you have contact with De Jonge?
“Sometimes, not very often. I sometimes send him a thumbs up. I think it’s great how he does the job and perseveres.”
De Jonge is on the ride, not you.
“Yes. He might be better off letting it go. You should ask him that. I can only respect that. I think it’s super cool. Also what he does on social media. I saw him on the cover of Linda Magazine too, haha.”
Do you ever fantasize about being a minister?
“No. Never. And I’m not going to say what else should be done. It’s not up to me.”
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Bruins is a real Hague resident. He is fond of Anouk’s music and has a season ticket from ADO Den Haag. Before the corona outbreak, he sometimes turned off the lights during a cozy pub night.
What do you miss the most?
“I have canceled tickets – from Anouk and Nile Rodgers. Let’s hope it can be done again soon. And I’m looking forward to being back in the stands of ADO.”
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Also in your city are people who are not vaccinated. What do you say to them?
“I’m not going to force people. I tell them that I have been vaccinated myself and why I think it is important. I am also aware that people are more likely to think of me because of my past. I always have two mouth caps with me and I stick to the rules.”
Will we see you again as minister?
“No. There are two pieces of paper in my safe with the names of possible successors to Rutte – a man and a woman. But I hope Rutte will stay for a while. He sympathized with me when I was at home. Just by asking: How are you?”
Do you mind being forgotten or do people still recognize you?
“I don’t mind at all that I am forgotten. I do regret that I had to leave the team. Every now and then people still recognize me. When I went to get my shot, a boy from the injection location said: ‘Hey , aren’t you the former minister?’ And last week a woman spoke to me: whether I was completely old again. Being sick also provided a nice insight: that there are a lot of warm people out there.”
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