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Dutch CDC director Jaap van Dissel, in an interview w/ AD, picked up by national broadcaster NOS, stating that going forward new measures should be introduced sooner. This seems a self-explanatory thing but, in true Disselian fashion, we needed a year to find that out in NL.
He also stated the threshold for signal values(daily new cases/hospital admissions) used by the gov't to monitor the situation would be lowered. Again, why only now? Are you sure you won't be tempted to start moving the goalposts at some point?
He also alluded to potential relaxation of measures after the first group has been vaccinated. Health Minister de Jonge earlier insisted that vaccination would not be linked to a reward system.This seems..confusing? Or another indication that there's no actual plan for next year?
Also, while van Dissel is already talking about loosening guidelines, president-elect Joe Biden earlier this year stated that following of CDC guidelines (masks, distancing, no gatherings)would continue even w/ the availability of a vaccine. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/06/bidens-mask-plan-trumps-vaccine-chief-443231
While it's a publicly known secret that by now politics and science have become entangled in the Netherlands, with politicians and scientific advisors pointing at each other to justify decisions, it's probably best to sort out your messaging to the public, my dudes.
Alternative headline: After doing his own research, man discovers logic that new insights should be taken into account, while also rehashing his essentialist island argument that he's been using for the past year. Also same guy that still discourages mask use.
So this AD interview w/ Jaap van Dissel was eyebrow-raising at the least.
Available here in Dutch (paywall, sorry) https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/van-dissel-over-versoepelingen-in-februari-een-spannende-periode~abc40c9c/
Available here in Dutch (paywall, sorry) https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/van-dissel-over-versoepelingen-in-februari-een-spannende-periode~abc40c9c/
Snap dus echt niet waarom dit allemaal inzichten zijn die pas na een jaar verkregen kunnen worden. En hou op met die eilanden-en-hun-eigen-cultuur-lulkoek. En ga ajb niet weer je signaalwaarden verleggen als ze ongewelvallig zijn, ajb dankjewel graag gedaan.
Dat ze nu pas zijn gaan nadenken over wat er in/na januari gebeurt, want die indruk krijg ik als dit zo lees, is op z'n zachtst gezegd kwalijk.
Hier de NOS update: https://nos.nl/liveblog/2362597-van-dissel-in-februari-pas-versoepelingen-mogelijk-china-keurt-vaccin-goed#UPDATE-container-50029692
Switching back to English, now delving into some of the juicier bits of the AD interview. Van Dissel here says he does not think the Dutch pandemic response has been slow to catch up w/ reality on the ground. Also hints that threshold-goalposts had been moved??
And indeed, all of those famed signal thresholds/values had been breached by mid-autumn. "So threshold will be lowered, but by how much we still do not know."
He also doubles down on not admitting any non-biomedical expertise into the Outbreak Management Team, because, he says, we wouldn't want any conflicts of interest to arise.
The investigative journalists at FTM wrote multiple articles on that very topic! Here's on of them: https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/kluytmans-belang-coronatesten
JvD again says he's not sure if the current lockdown (kind of, Schiphol among others, is still open for business) came too late. Then proceeds to give a detached summary of how things went down the crapper.
Breaking: man comes to conclusions journalists have been writing about for what seems like ages, namely that far-reaching decentralization (thanks, Mr Rutte) is not conducive to a pandemic response.
