Rutte ‘regrets’ fuss after quietly adjusting mouth masks rules | Inland

Rutte made his statements on Tuesday in the tail end of the debate in the House of Representatives about corona policy. Both he and Minister De Jonge (Public Health) got a lot of wind in that debate, especially about the ramshackle testing policy, but also the fiddling with whether or not to wear masks in elderly care.

1,5 meter

For a long time, the rule applied that if healthcare workers could keep 1.5 meters away from their client and only need to have ‘casual contact’, they did not have to wear mouth masks according to the guidelines drawn up by the RIVM. This led to misunderstanding and unrest among the staff. According to many, fleeting contact in healthcare does not exist.

The guideline was suddenly amended in mid-August, but this happened almost silently. The new guideline was sent to healthcare institutions, but that its content had changed so drastically was not mentioned. Suddenly people did have to wear a mouth mask for ‘fleeting contact’.

According to Prime Minister Rutte, the guideline was amended to align the rules with hospital care, where mouth masks were already distributed in similar situations.

Many parties in the House of Representatives believe little of this explanation and rather believe that the old directive was simply a mistake by the RIVM. Rutte absolutely does not want to do that. He does, however, now let it be known that he regrets the fuss after the amendment of the directive.

From now on he wants to ‘explicitly draw attention to’ meaningful changes’ to the guidelines. “I really wanted to say that. And that I really regret the unrest among healthcare employees. ”

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