You know poep is hitting the fan when the team tasked with advising the Dutch government on how to handle coronavirus starts using all caps. 🤦
According to the Dutch Outbreak Management Team (OMT), ‘THE ONLY WAY’ (their emphasis) to avoid a holiday season lockdown with strict measures is to comply with the current measures in place.
Many no longer following advice and measures
According to the NOS, the OMT is feeling a bit let down by current efforts to follow measures in the Netherlands.
To begin, the Dutch cabinet, while taking on some of the team’s advice, did not take on all of it. For example, the OMT had also advised that the catering industry close at 6 PM and not 8 PM.
Meanwhile, the cabinet has since asked the OMT whether it would be possible to only prevent the entry of new customers after 8 PM and allow catering to remain open later. As the all caps suggest, this doesn’t fly with the OMT. 🙅
According to the OMT, “the risk of contamination does not only depend on the number and change of different visitors, but also on the contact time between the visitors and the intensity of the contact.”
It’s not just the cabinet that the OMT is speaking to however, it’s also the public. According to the team, people are only complying with social distancing, testing, and wearing a face mask half of the time.
No new measures suggested yet
That being said, the OMT has not advised any specific new measures as of yet. Instead, they just want people to do better with the measures that are already in place. Or as the advice states:
“In the opinion of the OMT, improved compliance with existing measures currently has the potential to have a better effect on the decrease in the number of contacts than opting for the adjustment and extension of restrictive measures within a week.”
To summarise: keep sneezing into your elbow, pull that facemask up over your nose (yes OVER the nose), and give your loved ones some air hugs for the time being. That way, the Netherlands may be able to avoid a holiday lockdown. 🤞
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