Van Dissel: flying ban is not necessary if there is a quarantine obligation | Inland

RIVM boss Jaap van Dissel said this during a briefing in the House of Representatives. From January there will be a ban on passenger flights from South America and South Africa. The list has barely changed since then. There are voices in parliament, including from D66, GL and the PvdD, to also add India to the list because a dangerous mutant of the corona virus is spreading rapidly. The variant has now also reached Europe. According to Van Dissel, a flight ban is not necessarily necessary, as long as the test and quarantine obligation is strictly enforced.

Next week, the House of Representatives will discuss the law with which the quarantine obligation can be enforced. Airlines would like the obligation because it allows the flight bans to be lifted. Some parties in the House do not want that link. Member of Parliament Paternotte of D66 thinks that list is outdated anyway. For example, Suriname is on it, while the country has far fewer infections than the Netherlands.

On March 26, the cabinet asked RIVM whether a flight ban was necessary. The national institute did not think that was necessary at the time, and it still is not. The number of diagnosed infections has since then increased fivefold.

Third wave British

Incidentally, the South African variant has barely gained a foothold in our country, Van Dissel explained. The third wave is almost entirely due to the British variant of the virus, which is 31 percent more contagious than the classic variant, which has now been completely supplanted. The reproduction number is still slightly above 1, which means that the number of infections is still increasing.

The RIVM director also showed that the influx of corona patients into hospitals appears to be leveling off and the number of infections is stabilizing. He expects the pressure on hospitals to drop in early May. Nevertheless, the Outbreak Management Team preferred that the cabinet would wait to relax until the decline had really started. “So that you can take that step with more confidence.”

‘New phase’

According to Van Dissel, the pandemic is reaching ‘a new phase’. “The virus is increasingly colliding with someone who has already had it or who has been vaccinated. Until now, a decrease was only caused by stricter measures. Now it is due to the build-up of immunity. ”

According to Van Dissel, the effects of the vaccination campaign are becoming increasingly visible. He pointed again to figures showing that older people in the highest age groups hardly contract the virus anymore.

Van Dissel points out that the burden on intensive care is still high with almost 840 admissions. “That care will not be scaled down from the regular care.”

–