De Jonge signals new coronavirus measures, patient numbers rising ‘too fast’ / ‘Bring back social distancing instead of new rules for the unvaccinated’

 

De Jonge signals new coronavirus measures, patient numbers rising ‘too fast’

Corona October 25, 2021

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/10/de-jonge-signals-new-coronavirus-measures-patient-numbers-rising-too-fast/

 

Health minister Hugo de Jonge says new measures are needed.

 The cabinet will decide next week what measures to bring in to curb the rapid rise in coronavirus patients in the last week. Health minister Hugo de Jonge told NOS that numbers were rising ‘faster and sooner than we expected’, but said the outlook was complicated by the fact that the majority of people in hospital are unvaccinated. ‘It’s just not as easy as going back to the measures that worked before, because our analysis shows that it’s mainly unvaccinated people that have the biggest risk of being infected and infecting others,’ he said. The cabinet had been due to announce the next stage of pandemic rules on November 5, but ministers have come under pressure from medical professionals to act sooner. Since September 25, when the social distancing rule was abolished and the Corona Check pass was brought in for indoor venues, the average number of infections per day has trebled to nearly 5,000. On Sunday the number of patients in hospital rose to 748, exceeding the last peak in mid-August and 35% up on a week ago. On Monday the figure rose again to 796, including 199 people who are being treated in intensive care. Some hospitals have begun transferring coronavirus patients to other parts of the country amid warnings that the healthcare system will be overloaded if the government does not act soon. On Sunday the HagaZiekenhuis in The Hague temporarily suspended patient admissions and directed ambulances to other hospitals in the region. Diederik Gommers, chair of the intensive care association NVIC, said the number of patients in intensive care had already exceeded the projected level for January. ‘We know where a lot of the unvaccinated people live and where the outbreaks are,’ he said. ‘That makes it very hard to say we should shut down the whole country again.’ De Jonge said: ‘We want to prevent the situation where hospitals have to select patients at the door. Nobody wants that. That means we have to be prepared to take measures.’

 

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‘Bring back social distancing instead of new rules for the unvaccinated’

Corona October 26, 2021

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/10/bring-back-social-distancing-instead-of-new-rules-for-the-unvaccinated/

 

The government should enforce existing coronavirus rules and bring back social distancing rather than bring in extra restrictions for people who have not been vaccinated, a member of the government’s outbreak management team (OMT) has told Nieuwsuur. Marc Bonten said specific rules for unvaccinated people would be hard to enforce, partly because there are no central records of where they live. Health minister Hugo de Jonge hinted that people who have not had the vaccine – around 13% of the adult population – could be treated differently when the cabinet announces changes to the rules next Tuesday, after consulting the OMT. The announcement has been brought forward following a steep rise in hospital admissions in the last two weeks. The public health agency RIVM has calculated that people who are unvaccinated are 33 times more likely to end up in intensive care if they catch coronavirus. De Jonge said following a cabinet meeting on Monday: ‘Is imposing additional measures on the whole of society justified when we know that a section of society is in need of extra protection? The epidemic is increasingly an epidemic of the unvaccinated.’ Bonten said the focus on unvaccinated people was understandable, but questioned whether separate rules would work in practice and called for stricter checks on QR codes at indoor venues, as well as a return to the basic rules such as social distancing and working from home. ‘We hear that people are standing in queues and the QR code checks in busy places leave a lot to be desired,’ he said. ‘Our message has always been: keep 1.5 metres apart wherever possible. There’s been a tendency to act as if we’re done with all the rules. ‘We’ve heard that an analysis has been done of how the unvaccinated population is spread out, particularly in the Randstad conurbation, and how we should organise measures for those people, but it’s a real challenge. That’s very difficult to do in the Netherlands because don’t know where all the unvaccinated people are.’

 

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