Will the lockdown end and is relaxation possible? The new corona minister Ernst Kuipers (D66) is still cautious today and does not want to say much. “Any scenarios are really conceivable. It’s not that I don’t want to say anything, I just can’t say it yet. I won’t get the OMT advice until tonight.”
Don’t treat it like the flu yet
He is clear about one thing: it is too early to treat corona as the flu. “We need more information. Such as: how is the course of the patients who have the omikorron variant.”
The numbers of infections are high and we are not yet seeing that in hospitals, Kuipers acknowledges. “But we expect that to go up, it is still uncertain how exactly that will go.”
The fact that it is now also quiet in the ICs is not surprising, according to the minister, because it takes two weeks before the effect on the ICs is reflected. “And the infections have only been really high for about ten days.”
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quarantineregels
Kuipers has specifically asked the Outbreak Management Team to look at the quarantine rules to prevent society from getting stuck. “I have asked whether the rules still fit with this current variant and whether there are options to adjust the quarantine rules. I have not yet received that answer from the OMT.”
The quarantine rules can have a disruptive effect, the minister acknowledges, who also points to foreign countries. From the United States to France and the United Kingdom, countries all over the world are facing a new corona problem. Due to the omikron variant, the infections are rising so fast that huge numbers of people have to be quarantined
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Don’t enforce tighter
After the consultations, Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz (Justice and Security) announced that he did not intend to enforce the corona rules more strictly, for example if shopkeepers reopen their doors against the rules. “Compliance is more what you and I make of it than that the police have to walk around,” says the VVD member.
The minister does think that everyone should abide by the rules, but ‘that is up to the people themselves’. “You also do it for your own health and for your environment.”
Shops open
Shopkeepers in several cities threaten to open their doors next weekend or even earlier, even if the cabinet decides to extend the current lockdown on Friday. The minister says he understands the ‘frustration’ of entrepreneurs very well.
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