Rutte refuses to turn against unvaccinated | Inland

“The complicated thing is, of course, that you want to continue to convince as many people as possible who have not been vaccinated to do so,” Rutte said on Saturday during the VVD’s online conference. “I think if you put that too hard, you run the risk that people who are still considering taking a vaccine think: ‘yes, I’m being pushed into that corner anyway, so why should I still do it? ‘

If he had not been prime minister, he would probably go further into this, says Rutte. “I think I would feel freer then.” The prime minister fears further polarizing the country with a too harsh approach. “Where some say it is leadership now to speak out against the unvaccinated, my choice is that leadership is here to make sure we keep it all together.”

The Young One

It is striking that corona minister De Jonge did turn against unvaccinated people during the press conference on Friday evening. “I think that in the political debate and the social debate we are circumventing the inconvenient truth with too great a bow. The fact that operations have to be canceled would not have been necessary if 100% of the people had been vaccinated. The fact that we now have to take such firm measures would not have been necessary – or to a completely different extent – if everyone had been vaccinated,” said the corona minister.

Rutte denies that there is a kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ agreement, in which De Jonge takes a hard line on unvaccinated people, and he does not. “I think he’s just a little less able to contain himself than I am. That is also its strength. But we do think the same.”

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