The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) takes into account that new rounds of vaccinations will be needed “in the coming months”. This is stated in the long-term strategy that Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health, D66) sent to the House of Representatives on Monday. If necessary, according to the ministry, the GGD can scale up “in three weeks” from the current capacity of 300,000 vaccinations per week to half a million vaccinations per week. This can then be expanded to 1.5 million injections within six weeks.
According to the ministry, there are enough vaccines in stock to offer the entire Dutch population a repeat vaccination. Several pharmaceutical companies are working on modified corona vaccines that are more effective against new variants, such as the Omikron variant. The Netherlands can convert the vaccines it still owes from a pharmaceutical into the modified vaccine as soon as it becomes available.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the Outbreak Management Team has advised the cabinet on the epidemiological developments of the virus. Now there will also be a Social Impact Team (MIT) that will advise on the social and economic impact of corona measures. Jolande Sap, former member of the House of Representatives of GroenLinks, is to chair this team. MIT will co-exist with the OMT and will provide solicited and unsolicited advice on the “wider societal impact of proposed measures”.
Epidemiological picture ‘favourable’
Last week, RIVM predicted that a summer wave of corona infections is on the way, due to more contagious sub-variants and decreasing immunity of the vaccines. According to the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the epidemiological picture is now ‘favourable’. Currently, the number of infections is “relatively low” and there are “few” new admissions in the ICUs. Because the Netherlands is now ‘better prepared and protected’, the situation is different from last year.
The ministry does emphasize the importance of individual measures such as washing hands, good ventilation and staying home in the event of complaints. In the coming months, the cabinet wants to continue talking with various sectors to ‘create ladders of measures’ for a revival of the virus, so that society can remain open as much as possible. In the unlikely event of a ‘black scenario’, further measures cannot be ruled out. The basic principle is that the closure of schools and childcare must be prevented ‘at all times’.