Opposition wants debate on corona pass restriction for half a million people
MPs Fleur Agema (PVV) and Pieter Omtzigt want the limitation of the validity of the corona pass for about half a million people, about which Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health, D66) informed the House of Representatives on Monday, to be discussed on Tuesday during the parliamentary debate on the extension of the temporary corona law. They wrote that on Monday evening in a letter to Chamber President Vera Bergkamp.
The request to raise the limitation of the validity of the corona pass for that group is supported by the SP, PvdA, GroenLinks, Party for the Animals, FvD, SGP, JA21, Groep-Van Haga, DENK and BBB. This means that the threshold of fifty MPs needed to put the issue on the agenda is easily reached.
Kuipers informed the House on Monday that up to 540,000 people will have their corona tickets expire at the beginning of February due to stricter rules. This concerns people who were vaccinated in 2021, but who did not receive a booster vaccination in time. According to Kuipers, the number is a “rough estimate” by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. According to Omtzigt, it is “mismanagement” to suddenly dupe that group with the change.
Fewer people died of corona in the third quarter of 2021
In the months of July, August and September of last year, 953 people died from the effects of Covid-19. That appears from preliminary figures of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). That is considerably less than the quarter before, when 2,602 people died from the disease. Statistics Netherlands arrives at these numbers on the basis of reports from doctors, who indicate Covid-19 as the suspected or established cause of death of a patient.
In the months of August and September there was excess mortality, despite the lower corona death rate than in the months of April, May and June. In August, 435 people died as a result of Covid-19, in September 341.
The mortality figures of the third quarter show that relatively more young people die from the disease. In those three months, a small majority of the deaths were over 80 years old, 30 percent between the ages of 65 and 80 and 14 percent under the age of 65. Of the 32,408 people who have died from Covid-19 since March 2020, 63 percent are over 80. years and only 6 percent younger than 65. This shift was already visible in the second quarter.