It is almost inevitable that the outbreak management team will advise easing the measures. ‘We are very close to what has been done in Denmark. Say: it’s done for now’, thinks Professor of Epidemiology Frits Rosendaal (LUMC). “This has become a completely different situation, despite the insanely high number of infections,” says medical microbiologist Bert Mulder of the Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital in Nijmegen. ‘RIVM expected a peak in hospitals, but it has not materialized. Omikron has turned everything upside down.’
The anonymous source circuit in The Hague is now buzzing. According to several media The cabinet would prepare itself for significant relaxation, such as broadening the rules for catering and culture. How far the cabinet will go depends to a large extent on the OMT’s advice.
A week and a half ago, according to the RIVM, there was still a threatening thundercloud in the sky, of up to 6,500 hospital patients at the beginning of March, once the omikron variant would take hold. Although the chance of this happening was small, the catastrophe scenario could not be ruled out.
The flag is now different. New figures from Denmark and Great Britain, among others, show that omikron makes even less sick than previous reports already indicated and that booster vaccines stop the virus better than expected. The last major obstacle on the way to the exit will therefore shrivel in the models into just a bump: annoying, but manageable.
The number of hospital patients will increase in the coming weeks, a trend that has become observable in recent weeks. But the run-up of corona patients will probably no longer be much higher than at the beginning of December, a look at calculations that RIVM made earlier of the more favorable conditions.
This is not to say that all brakes can be released. ‘The main message from abroad is that things seem to be going well in IC, but that the numbers of hospital admissions can still rise sharply’, says modeler Jacco Wallinga of the RIVM. ‘And that while absenteeism among healthcare staff is high due to the large number of infections. So the overall message is that it remains very uncertain.’
Epidemiologist Alma Tostmann (Radboud UMC) agrees. ‘I think the jubilation is justified. With these numbers you can almost ask yourself: do measures still make sense? But I do add that it takes a while before you see the current peak of infection in hospitals. Even though the peak is lower, there will certainly be some more to come.’
So far, RIVM’s calculations have been based on two crucial assumptions: that someone has a 40 percent less chance of hospitalization after an omikron infection than after being infected with the delta variant, and that boosters only protect about 47 percent against getting the omikron virus.
But in the rapidly expanding forest of research, the indications are piling up that RIVM is being very cautious about this. According to a recently published British analysis After being infected with omikron, people have not a 40, but a 56 percent less risk of hospitalization. A French analysis comes out at 80 percent, and a large American study at 60 percent less risk. ‘The evidence in the literature has shifted more towards 60 percent’, agrees Wallinga.
The same applies to the protection against omikron by boosters. Published from Tuesday own research of the RIVM in the GGD test streets it appears that the booster protects for 68 percent against the omikron variant, considerably more than the RIVM assumed so far.