“Virologists have a hard time getting money from the EU for research” – The Daily Standard

According to virologist Lia van der Hoek, leader of a European research group on coronaviruses, it is almost impossible to get extra funding from the high pipos in Brussels. This while this European team has been researching various forms of the corona virus for several years now.

For many years, Van der Hoek has been researching various types of the corona virus with a team of PhD students. When the virus broke out in China, she and her team immediately rang the bell in Brussels. To her surprise, it was silent.

“As a research group, we have been mapping the coronavirus for years. Even before the virus was in the Netherlands, our team already had a synthetic version in Switzerland. I said that we have been researching coronaviruses for years and asked what the possibilities are to help, but the EU did not want to make money available to us. ”

After a few weeks, there was still a response. The money was already given away to research teams who had much less experience than her team. This to the shock of her team.

Van der Hoek has long advocated putting all expertise within the EU in a large crisis team. Now there are dozens of teams, so the knowledge is very fragmented. According to her, the EU should free up money for a large expertise team.

Van der Hoek is also very critical of the Dutch variant of the lockdown. She believes that a total lockdown would have been much better.