Divided OMT team wants longer Christmas school breaks

The Outbreak Management Team (OMT) asked the Cabinet to consider extending the Christmas holidays of schools to reduce the number of coronavirus infections. When the wave of contamination rose at the end of lt year, the OMT also advised a longer Christmas holiday. Minister of Education Arie Slob did not consider it a good idea at the time.

An extended school holiday was not part of the measures announced by Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Health Minister Hugo de Jonge on Friday evening.

Education will remain open for the time being. "The education system will remain open. Not because there are few or no infections, but because the social impact would be huge," Rutte said. Students in Groups Six, Seven and Eight and students in secondary education are required to wear a face mask.

The OMT meeting last Wednesday was the most difficult so far, OMT member and ICU doctor Diederik Gommers said. From that meeting came the advice on which the Cabinet based the measures announced on Friday evening. According to him, the division among the leading advisers of the Cabinet is growing.

The chair of the Dutch Association for Intensive Care said that the discrepancies arise mainly because the figures on which the OMT relies, such as predicted hospital admissions, have recently turned out to be higher than previously expected. "That makes OMT members less secure. You can see that it is no more fully under control," Gommers said.

The ICU doctor, along with "a few other OMT members, favored a hard lockdown. Still, Gommers said he is satisfied with the final, less strict OMT advice the Cabinet followed.

Epidemiologist Frits Rosendaal also preferred a hard lockdown "ideally, already a month ago." According to the Leiden University Medic Center (LUMC) professor, early and hard intervention is better because the number of infected people is still low.

Roosendaal said society could also handle a hard lockdown better. "If everyone is treated equally hard, that is easier to sell," the professor said, adding that the measures announced on Friday are "very good."

According to Gomemrs, the most important thing is whether people stick to the rules.