The House of Representatives is returning from Christmas recess today for a debate about the lockdown that the outgoing cabinet announced on Saturday. A majority supports this measure, but many parties have questions about the long-term approach to corona.
Until now, the criticism from the House was often that the cabinet intervened too late, but that accusation will not be heard today. A lockdown has been decided before the infection figures rise. This was unavoidable due to the uncertainty surrounding the omikron variant, a majority believes.
However, the question will be asked whether locking up society could have been prevented by boosting earlier. At the press conference, outgoing Prime Minister Rutte and Minister De Jonge said that the same problems exist in other countries, where injections have already started.
The cabinet is fully committed to the booster campaign, because with that jab the protection of people against the virus, including against the omikron variant, will be brought back to a good level.
Increase IC capacity
Opposition parties such as the PVV, the SP and GroenLinks will once again insist on increasing capacity in healthcare, so that a new wave can be more easily absorbed. “If the cabinet continues to refuse to invest in increasing IC capacity to at least the European average, this will not be the last lockdown,” warns PVV MP Fleur Agema.
She opposes the closure of non-essential stores, as is currently the case. It is precisely by keeping all the shops open until 10 p.m. that the crowds are spread out, Agema argues. According to her, store closures have not been proven effective.
SP member Maarten Hijink also believes that the cabinet has done too little to increase care capacity. “They stand with their backs against the wall and now all that remains is the panic button.” Hijink, like his colleague Lisa Westerveld from GroenLinks, wants more testing to be done to monitor the virus.
Have skewers tested soon
“With low-threshold test facilities, we can suppress the virus as soon as possible in case of new revival, so that we do not constantly struggle from lockdown to lockdown,” says Westerveld. Jan Paternotte of D66 wants to retain people who are currently being recruited for the prick streets, so that they can be used for testing and source and contact research after the booster campaign.
The House will also insist that education reopen as soon as possible, in order to prevent learning delays. In addition, almost the entire House wants companies affected by the lockdown to be fully compensated.
The debate starts this afternoon at 12:00 noon. There is a technical briefing for this, during which experts will explain the current situation to MPs.
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