Corona in the Netherlands: testing like in Germany? “Failure to Do”

omicron wave
Corona in the Netherlands: testing like in Germany? Completely hopeless

Waiting area of ​​a vaccination center at Amsterdam Airport Schipohl

© Remko de Waal / ANP / AFP

Will the corona pandemic end with Omikron? A question that is also being hotly debated in the Netherlands. The call to suspend all measures is getting louder. Nothing is expected from the German test strategy.

After around two years of the pandemic, the Dutch are no different than most Europeans: they are tired of Corona. The frequent ups and downs of the infection waves and the resulting measures have worn down the 17 million people just as much as the Germans. It was not uncommon for even more rigorous measures to be taken in The Hague than in Berlin. Just last Friday, the government relaxed a strict general lockdown that had been in place since December 19 – and only after strong pressure from companies. However, restaurants, museums, theaters and cinemas should remain closed for the time being. The number of people at private meetings is also initially limited.

Doubts are growing that all of this really still makes sense, not only in the hard-hit gastronomy and cultural sectors. Since the omicron variant seems to spread almost unhindered, but the infections in large numbers are rather mild, many Dutch people tend to question whether the time has not come to let the virus run free. The call to suspend all corona measures is getting louder between Holland, Friesland and Limburg.

Study: 2G would only help with ongoing testing

The discussion is fueled by a new study by the universities in Delft and Utrecht. After that, the omicron variant also spread so much among vaccinated and recovered Dutch people that the 2G rule favored by the government for an opening will be of little use in the workplace and in public. “This means that we will not get any help from 2G or 3G,” notes Utrecht-based epidemiologist Marc Bonten in the newspaper De Volkskrant.

Bonten is a member of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), an expert panel of the Reich Institute for Public Health (RIVM), which is roughly comparable to the German Robert Koch Institute. He points out that the Delft and Utrecht study leaves only one way out of Omicron for a transition to more freedom in everyday life: test, test and test again, as is currently the norm in Germany. But Bonten doesn’t think too much of this approach. A “test society” like in Germany, “that seems to me to be a completely hopeless undertaking”. According to the Delft study, in relation to Omicron, that would mean that if you really wanted to stop the virus, everyone would have to be tested every day, everywhere. Bonten: “I don’t think there has ever been a measure that 100 percent of the people have followed.”


virologist dr.  Woodpecker on other virus variants and vaccination requirements

Vaccination rate in the Netherlands higher than in Germany

So just open it and hope the virus becomes endemic? The Dutch experts don’t want to go that far either. Not yet. However, the conditions for approval would be significantly better in the Netherlands than in Germany. According to the latest data from the RIVM, more than 89 percent of Dutch people over the age of 18 have been vaccinated at least once – 86 percent have already received a second dose. According to the RIVM, more than 84 percent of all people over the age of 12 have been vaccinated twice. In addition, according to the information, the booster campaign is making good progress. According to figures published on Tuesday, more than 53 percent of adults have already picked up their third spade, and the trend is rising. Then there are the people who have built up a certain level of immunity as a result of an infection.

“Ultimately, the only way out is that we have built up sufficient protection against serious diseases so that the hospitals are no longer overburdened,” epidemiologist Bonten notes in the “Volkskrant”. The group of Dutch people “who haven’t seen the virus yet” is getting smaller and smaller. “This brings the moment closer to dropping all measures.

Is an omicron tsunami approaching the clinics?

“From ‘2G is not possible’ to omission is a very big step,” Nijmeg epidemiologist Alma Trostmann believes, but that this moment has not yet come. Her colleague Matthijs Berends from the University Hospital Groningen and Certe agrees. “I would certainly not dare to let go of everything completely at the moment,” said Berends in the paper, “not because I necessarily see big problems, but because I have no idea what to expect.” With currently only 300 corona intensive care patients nationwide, who also have a shorter length of stay, according to the experts in the intensive care units of Dutch hospitals, no more problems are to be expected.

However, according to the experts, a veritable care tsunami would hardly be manageable for normal hospital wards – and such a heavy wave is to be feared in view of the extremely rapid spread of omicron. The experts expect the first real wave of omicron patients in the hospitals in the coming weeks. They are also waiting for new models from the RIVM regarding the length of hospital stay. “Then you really have a good idea of ​​what to expect,” Trostmann believes. And possibly also an idea of ​​​​if and when you can just let the virus run. The Dutch longing for this moment should be just as great as anywhere else in Europe.

Sources: Study by the Universities of Delft and Utrecht, “The Volkskrant” (1), “The Volkskrant” (2), Rijksinstituut for Volksgezondheid en Milieu, DPA news agency

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