GGD won't Covid test people for going to events

The GGD municipal health service will not be testing asymptomatic people for the coronavirus so that they can go to an event. If you need a negative test to attend a festival, concert or see a movie, go get a rapid test at a commercial service, GGD chair Andre Rouvoet said to newspaper Trouw.

Over the past weeks there's been a lot of discussion about a "coronavirus passport" - a way to show that you are not currently contagious because you've been vaccinated, recently tested negative, or recently recovered from Covid-19 and therefore have immunity against the virus. People with such proof of non-contagiousness can then be allowed to attend events. A government app showing proof of negative test will be tested at festival experiments in Biddinghuizen this weekend.

But according to Rouvoet, the GGD cannot test people with no symptoms only to enable them to participate in social life. The GGD capacity is intended to combat the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And while asymptomatic testing is already underway the purpose is to find and isolate people who are infected with the coronavirus.

"The GGD is there for public health. That is our task. If there are outbreaks somewhere, we can test large-scale risk-based. I'm making sure that we do not use our capacity for purposes other than the fight against the virus," Rouvoet said to the newspaper.

At this moment, the GGD is using less than a third of its daily test capacity, but the extra capacity will not be used for this purpose, Rouvoet said. "The task of preventive testing without additional reason lies primarily with the business community or education and not with the GGD. That was discussed with the cabinet."