Members of outbreak team against separate measures for unvaccinated

Multiple members of the Outbreak Management Team are against implementing separate measures for people not vaccinated against Covid-19, they said to NU.nl. They called it polarizing and hard to enforce. With infections skyrocketing, the Cabinet is expected to announce new measures on Tuesday.

A survey by EenVandaag among 28,000 members of its opinion panel found that 72 percent of vaccinated Netherlands residents want the Cabinet to impose specific measures on those who chose not to get vaccinated. Unvaccinated people are vehemently against this, with 98 percent saying no to specific restrictions for them.

"I am not in favor of it at all," medical microbiologist Jan Kluytmans said. "It is very much against individual freedoms." Separate measures will also be challenging to implement and enforce. "Half of the unvaccinated live spread out across the country, 10 percent are in religious communities, and 40 percent are in the large cities. Then you have to do something in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. But how are you going to implement it, and what are you going to achieve with it?"

Virologist Menno de Jong thinks that different measures will "polarize us too much." Diederik Gommers of intensive care association NVIC says that he makes "no distinction" as a doctor. "You also have to be careful not to put groups against each other."

Andreas Voss, professor of infection prevention, called it a "difficult decision." "I believe that society should not be held hostage by a minority, but I am also against any form of discrimination. I want everyone, including people who decided not to get vaccinated, to be able to participate in society."

All the OMT members NU.nl spoke to agreed on how to prevent the coronavirus from spreading further - adhere better to the restrictions in place.

"Keep at least 1.5 meters apart and work at home if possible. Stay home if you have symptoms and get tested. Use a QR code for certain risky activities. These are all measures that I think have hardly been observed," Kluytmans said. "The virus won't just go away, not even with vaccination. It will become manageable, but the problem will not go away completely. This virus has been added and will certainly continue to take its toll every year."