Jaap van Dissel does not expect that we can celebrate Christmas with more than a few people. The current infection figures are too bad for that, says the RIVM CEO News hour.
“We have now seen for two weeks that the numbers are decreasing slightly, but still linger for too long. As a result, the care is still too much burdened. We see a bit of a decrease in the number of patients in hospitals, but that is very slow and difficult. “
Van Dissel is a lot more optimistic about spring. “You hear that vaccines will be available in the first, second quarter.” If enough people want to take the vaccine, Van Dissel thinks that the Netherlands will have built up enough herd immunity before the summer to return to normal.
“Virus turned out to be too nasty”
In March, when there was hardly any insight into an effective vaccine, there was still the idea that circulating the virus would eventually get us out of the crisis. Thus we would quickly achieve group immunity.
But it soon became clear that this strategy would be disastrous. Van Dissel: “In March we saw that the increase in IC admissions made it possible to circulate widely without checking as not a realistic option.” It also turned out to be a wrong estimate that elderly people in nursing homes could be sufficiently shielded from the roaming virus.
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A vaccination is essentially a route to herd immunity, and we all still want to achieve that.
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A total lockdown to completely extinguish the virus was also not an option, says Van Dissel. “We know it’s such a sneaky virus that uses our social interaction in our open society so easily that it turned out to be nearly impossible to get rid of completely. We had to move towards a controlled way of it.”
This controlled circulation, by means of ‘partial’ and ‘intelligent’ lockdowns, could have taken years. “We know from studies that now about 8 percent of the Dutch have had the virus and made antibodies against the virus. If that had been the only way, it would have taken a long time.”
But now a vaccine appears to be coming soon: “that is essentially a route to group immunity”.
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Celebrating Christmas together can be a catalyst for further spread.
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At the beginning of this month, in addition to the good vaccine news, there was also hope for a relaxation of the measures in December. But the decline in contamination figures is stagnating.
On December 8, the cabinet will come up with the final rules for Christmas. If the number of IC admissions had been below ten per day, Van Dissel and the experts from the Outbreak Management Team would probably have advised the government to broaden the rule that you can receive a maximum of three people at home. “Now that the figures are so stagnant, we are very sad whether we will achieve that before Christmas.”
“If you celebrate Christmas together, it can be a catalyst for further spread. And then also New Year’s Eve will come almost a week later. Then you are looking at potentially many new cases in January. “
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You would hope that people would embrace that vaccine, because now there is finally a way to get out of this outbreak.
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So we really have to persevere for a while, emphasizes Van Dissel. The first (vulnerable) people will receive a vaccine in January, he expects. Then it takes a few months before enough Dutch people have been vaccinated. Between 60 and 70 percent of the population must have had an injection to achieve herd immunity. Van Dissel: “That is much lower than, for example, with measles, which is much more contagious.”
Still, the question is whether we will ever achieve that percentage. Almost half of the Dutch, 48 percent, themselves does not want to be vaccinated immediately if a vaccine becomes available. “That worries me. You would hope that people would embrace that vaccine, because now there is finally a way to get out of this outbreak.”
For the coming months, it is important that we do not relax and preferably take the measures a little more seriously. Whether we can return to normal quickly “depends on us all.”
“We see, for example, that working from home really needs to be improved. We did that in March. There are a lot of factors that we can control ourselves with which we can accelerate the decline of the infections.”
Do you want to see the entire conversation with Jaap van Dissel again? Then look here:
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Van Dissel gloomy about Christmas, but hopes for an end to measures in the summer ‘
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