The cabinet failed to re-open nightlife, said OMT member and field lab lead researcher Andrea Voss. For example, Voss and his team recommended that the mandatory access test be taken no more than 24 hours before the end of a party: the cabinet opted for 40 hours, resulting in a greater risk of infections.
The decision was made to cancel the multi-day festivals and the cabinet set aside more than 400 million euros to compensate organizers. But festival goers and organizers were disappointed. The cabinet was supposed to make a decision on the one-day events on 13 August, but that was brought forward to today. These can also only continue under strict conditions, so many festivals have decided to cancel the event anyway Cancel.
‘Too early’
The experts think it was not just the nightlife that propelled the delta variant, say Van Ranst and Baidjoe. The problem, they said, was letting go of all measures at once. Had the Netherlands waited until more people had been fully vaccinated, the situation would have looked different epidemiologically, they conclude.
Large festivals might have been possible at the end of August, although that cannot be said with certainty. “Among professional virologists, the consensus was that the relaxation came too early,” Van Ranst recalls. “Virologists are sometimes accused of being pessimistic, but we were just right.”
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