The Outbreak Management Team has advised the cabinet to treat the coronavirus as a normal respiratory infection from now on. This means that people no longer have to go into isolation with a positive test, that self-tests are no longer mandatory and that people no longer have to stay at home if they have complaints.
However, the question is whether the Netherlands is ready for this, thinks IC doctor and former OMT member Diederik Gommers, who emphasizes that there is still an endemic virus. ‘If the cabinet adopts the OMT advice, we can indeed speak of a flu,’ says Gommers. ‘We should be happy about that. But it remains endemic, so it’s a serious flu.’
People who become infected with the corona virus can still become seriously ill, says Gommers. “So we’re not going to see it as ‘a little flu’.” He is supported by CDA MP Joba van den Berg, who wants to watch out for a ‘yo-yo policy’. ‘In the letter we received from the minister, he also writes the advice of the Administrative Coordination Consultation (BAO), and they state that a good plan must be made,’ she says. ‘I would find a yo-yo policy very bad, so I would like to wait for the carnival results. Only then can we really look at how we can properly scale it down.’
Don’t let go completely
Van den Berg himself is also not convinced of completely releasing all corona measures. For example, she would continue to use self-tests. ‘Then you at least know where you stand and what risks you expose others to,’ she says. ‘As long as they can be kept, they will stay in my cupboard.’
Gommers, however, sees it differently. He states that the self-tests will disappear straight to the trash if the cabinet adopts the OMT advice. “I think that if you really have a cold and sneeze and maybe have the flu, you automatically take into account that you won’t go to work,” he says. “But I don’t need to know if it’s covid or the flu. So as long as I’m contagious, I’ll stay home. It doesn’t matter to me what it is.’
