During a conversation in the House of Representatives on Monday, healthcare experts are critical of the cabinet’s plan to keep corona under control in the long term. For example, the ministry would have only worked out the ‘baseline scenario’ – in which corona behaves like a strong flu and does not cause large-scale disruption – but insufficient preparation has been made for doomsday scenarios. They call on the cabinet to further develop the corona policy. The main fear is that in the event of a new corona wave, the Netherlands will again be confronted with major staff shortages, especially in healthcare but also in the rest of society.
The capacity of the GGD is currently being scaled down, but if there is an unexpected major revival, many people will suddenly have to be flown in to vaccinate or test, says Jaap Eikelboom, coordinator of the corona control at the GGD umbrella organization GGD GHOR.
Kuipers’ long-term policy has an optimistic tone, but the experts are not reassured that no measures will be needed in the autumn. “We are not that far away from future lockdowns at all,” says health economist Xander Koolman. “Even in the most favorable scenario, say ‘flu plus’, measures will probably be taken,” says Koolman, if sparing care remains the starting point of corona policy. “The system is now set up in such a way that we can only take action in a panic mode.” According to him, current policy only looks at relieving the burden on acute care, and a flexible care capacity is needed.
In the meantime, Kuipers is looking for support for the extension of the temporary corona law, with which measures can be introduced quickly. This will be debated again on Tuesday in the Senate, where the law has been called into question. Kuipers previously reached out to critics by removing the controversial corona pass from the temporary law, but that does not seem to be enough. The cabinet needs the support of the PvdA or GL groups in the Senate, but the Senate groups of those parties have already hinted that they want to get rid of the temporary law. “We may think differently about this if not extending the corona law would be irresponsible, but we have not yet heard the arguments for this,” said PvdA senator Jeroen Recourt.
To prevent the temporary law from having to be extended again and again, Kuipers is trying to permanently anchor the basis for the basic measures against corona in the Public Health Act, but the question is whether this will succeed in time. The care minister is aiming to submit that adjustment before September 1, and after that it depends on both Houses how quickly you can deal with it, the ministry said.
If that does not work and the virus once again proves to be faster than politics, the cabinet will be ordered to take emergency regulations in the event of a new virus resurgence in order to be able to intervene quickly, as also happened during the first wave in 2020. That horse drug was previously criticized a lot. Emergency ordinances are actually intended for short-term crisis situations, but were used for a long time to the great dismay of critical MPs during the corona crisis for lack of better legal underpinnings.