By testing much more, De Jonge wants to make many more things possible. “You pull a sort of sieve through society and that is how you remove the positive cases. This makes more freedoms possible for the rest of society.”
RIVM director Jaap van Dissel sees something in the massive testing of people, including those without complaints. “If you can identify people at a very early stage, even before they infect others, then you obviously have an interesting way to prevent the transmission.”
‘I’m not participating in that’
Van Dissel emphasizes that it is still uncertain whether that is possible. “The investigation into this will take place at the moment and in the coming weeks.”
According to Van Dissel, it is important how many people participate. “If you say: I’m going to do a whole city, the question is of course: how many people will eventually show up? And if an important percentage say, I will not participate, then you already have a problem. So success depends. not only depends on the test, but also on how it is being picked up by the population. “
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Virologist Niesters emphasizes that he thinks it is important that more tests are carried out, especially to investigate who carries the virus without any symptoms of disease. But he sees little in the unfocused testing of all Dutch people.
‘Once a month is not much’
“If you are going to test every Dutch person every month, then once a month is very little”, says Niesters. “Then you would have to test every Dutch person a few times a week to see whether the virus is present and whether it contributes to the spread of the virus.”
According to virologist Niesters, such a negative test only says a few days that someone does not have the virus. “It means that you have a guarantee that you will be negative for the next 2 to 3 days.” According to Niesters, you will then no longer know how the tested person is doing in half a week.
Airports
“I don’t think that you should test every Dutch person every month, but that you should either do it more frequently, or more specifically, for example with students or people who are vulnerable.” In addition, he also sees more testing in places where finding infected people is more likely, such as in regions where the virus is prevalent or at airports where travelers from abroad arrive.
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