Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Dutch Intensive Care Association, is not in favor of a curfew. Not at all necessary for healthcare at the moment and too rigorous a measure. He announced this at Jinek in the program last Tuesday. There are more and more supporters of a curfew, but also many opponents. Even during the consultation with the mayors, opinions appear to be divided. The OMT advice seems to have convinced the mayors of the importance of an evening. The mayors are responsible for the implementation of the curfew. Today the cabinet will take a decision on the introduction of the curfew so that the proposal may go to the House of Representatives tomorrow and possibly be introduced from Friday.
We need to keep hospitals from overflowing. The graphs show: if we let go of everything now, things will get out of hand. But if we continue with the current measures now, the third wave will be the same size as the second wave. That is still immense. But we can handle that
Ernst Kuipers, colleague at Erasmus MC and chairman of the National Network Acute Care, had previously spoken out in favor of the curfew. There is a good chance that a curfew will be introduced in the Netherlands as soon as possible, between 20.00 p.m. and 04.00 a.m. Preparations have been in full swing for some time, including at the police. Nevertheless, it was said from that angle that there must be good and unambiguous communication to the population in order to avoid confusion in the implementation among the various enforcers and police services.
Despite the contamination figures going in the right direction in recent weeks, the reason for the extra measures is the emergence of a British corona variant in the Netherlands. Several experts warn that this variant will increase the pressure on the hospitals of critically ill corona patients in the coming weeks. In addition to the introduction of a curfew, the government is considering measures such as a flight ban from the United Kingdom and a quarantine obligation for travelers entering the Netherlands.
