The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport has asked several times to amend the advice of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT).
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For example, documents released by the ministry show that at the beginning of the crisis, in March 2020, it proposed to remove a call to healthcare workers. The call to be economical with mouth caps would be too ‘hard entry’. This is because the care employees are ‘of course already very frugal and ‘scream’ for extra masks’. The OMT did not respond to this, according to the advice that was eventually sent.
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Minister of Health Ernst Kuipers has released more than four hundred pages of internal communication about the OMT recommendations to the House of Representatives. This shows that most of the ministry’s comments were aimed at removing ambiguities. However, a number of attempts have also been made to change the content. Sometimes the OMT adopted the Ministry’s proposals, sometimes not.
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“Does this have to go with OMT now?”
In May 2020, emails were sent back and forth about the advice issued by the OMT about visiting the elderly. A ministry official complained that the advice from the OMT is more complicated and strict than what the cabinet had said earlier. “Does this have to go with OMT now?” the officer asks. He or she also suggests thinking about it for another week.
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The RIVM objected that the experts considered ‘the proposal submitted to them was not strict enough’. ‘I’m afraid this will not work in terms of communication, and ministers will not do it this way either,’ VWS responds. This extensive memorandum with advice on visiting the elderly was also published in the end.
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Longer waiting times
A comment that excessive pressure during source and contact investigations may lead to longer waiting times at the GGD was removed by the OMT in December of that year. As far as appears from the documents, VWS had not explicitly asked for this. The ministry did criticize the text, however, because it would not do justice to ‘the efforts made to ensure that there is sufficient testing capacity’.
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Something similar happened with a request from May last year following a discussion about reopening schools. Then the OMT initially suggested that unvaccinated teachers be offered a vaccination more quickly because they had not all been vaccinated yet. ‘Perhaps it would be better if the OMT finds that not all teachers have been vaccinated yet?’ an official argues.
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What he meant by that is not entirely clear. In fact, the final advice stated that it was pointless for teachers to test faster because that would prevent schools from opening earlier.
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