Netherlands marks two years since first coronavirus case

As the Netherlands looks back on its two-year anniversary of the first recorded coronavirus case in the country, experts warn against assuming the next variants will be as mild as omicron. The virus will continue to mutate and society must go on adapting, they say.

Apart from coronavirus, other viruses could also emerge, said Groningen virologist Bert Niesters. “This always happens,” he said. “You have to learn to live with it.”

Exactly two years ago on Sunday, the first infection with SARS-CoV-2 in the Netherlands became known when a man from Loon op Zand in Brabant was admitted to a Tilburg hospital. It later turned out that other people in the country had contracted the virus before him, and it spread rapidly –– especially during Carnival celebrations in the south of the country. More than six million positive Covid tests followed.

Over the course of the pandemic, variant after variant brought new challenges, with the more contagious types always winning out. Initially, variants were named after the countries where they were first found. Later, the World Health Organization (WHO) switched to Greek letters. The delta variant in particular quickly became notorious: it was more contagious than any of the earlier types and made many people very ill.

People were relieved when it became clear that the omicron variant, which followed delta, was much milder. However, experts say there is no guarantee that the next variant will also be similarly easy to handle.

Whether another variant will make people’s lives as miserable as delta did is “like telling a fortune with coffee grounds,” Niesters said. Virologist Ab Osterhaus also does not dare predict exactly how the coronavirus will develop, he said.

“In general, if viruses are circulating faster, they are more likely to be in the upper respiratory tract than in the lungs,” he explained. However, there are also exceptions to this rule, because some viruses are found both in the lungs and the upper respiratory tract.

Coronavirus could eventually develop into a winter cold virus, Osterhaus said. These types of viruses can also vary in severity. But less favorable scenarios are also conceivable, he said. Niesters emphasizes the importance of vaccinating as many people as possible against coronavirus worldwide. He also recommends still keeping the elderly and vulnerable safe.

New variants will continue to come and go. The emergence of a next subtype is no reason "to immediately start acting dramatic,” Niesters thinks. He points out that influenza, the flu virus, is also constantly changing and is sometimes aggressive, sometimes mild. "One year you have a thousand dead, the next eight or nine thousand,” he said.

In the meantime, the pandemic has made us a lot wiser, the Groningen virus expert said: "Because the whole world is now researching this coronavirus, we are also learning a lot about other coronaviruses.”