Vaccinated people must also test for access to events, catering industry: Outbreak Team
All people - vaccinated and unvaccinated - must be tested for the coronavirus before attending large events or going to busy catering establishments, the Outbreak Management Team said in advice to the government on Monday evening, NU.nl reports.
According to the OMT, the "green" code for full vaccination on the CoronaCheck app is not automatically withdrawn in the event of a positive coronavirus test. This means that people with the coronavirus can still access events and venues that require a negative test, and spread the virus in areas where social distancing is not maintained.
The OMT also wants the government to investigate whether the CoronaCheck app can only give access to one event or catering establishment per day. It cannot be ruled out that groups are widely spreading the coronavirus by moving from one venue to the next, the team of experts said.
On June 26, most of the lockdown measures in the Netherlands were relaxed, allowing events to happen and nightclubs to reopen. In the two weeks after that, the number of coroanvirus infections spiked. The relaxations were therefore partly reversed on July 9, resulting in nightclubs having to close again.
On Monday, a member of the OMT attributed the spike in infections at least partly to the government not listening to advice that Testing for Access Covid-19 tests should only be valid for 24 hours. The government found this legally complicated and therefore made negative test results valid for 40 hours. "We know of the Delta variant that if you are infected you can go from 'not yet detectable' to 'highly infectious' within 24 hours," she said.
On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that the cabinet was not considering any further lockdown restrictions for the time being, but added that "we may be here with a different story next week". The infection rate seems to have stabilized, but the average number of daily infections is still very high at around 10 thousand per day.
