Sore throats and runny noses celebrate their heyday immediately after carnival. Many partygoers suffer from it. And maybe more. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) expects that carnival has given an extra boost to the spread of the corona virus, which was already on the rise.
That is not very surprising, says a spokesman for the RIVM. “We know that you can get infected from close contact. And we also know that a distance of one and a half meters is not kept in the pub during carnival,” he says with a wink. “This gives the virus an extra chance.”
It is still too early to actually see this reflected in the figures. The coronavirus has an incubation period of several days. As a result, people can get sick even quite late after carnival.
Self test
“Moreover, the GGD no longer tests. People usually just do a self-test at home,” says the RIVM spokesperson. According to him, the GGD and the RIVM have less insight into the exact figures.
According to the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), this large-scale testing is no longer necessary. The virus is part of everyday life, according to the OMT.
The RIVM will release new figures on Tuesday. They will show whether the contamination figures have indeed increased in the provinces where a lot of carnival was celebrated. The RIVM advises everyone who has celebrated carnival to do a self-test before visiting grandpa or grandma or going to work.