People who have had contact with someone who has corona, but who have no complaints themselves, no longer need to quarantine. The cabinet follows advice on this from the RIVM. According to the RIVM, quarantine contributes little to the fight against the spread of the virus in these types of cases and the measure has major social consequences. The cabinet agrees.
The advice to wear a face mask when busy also expires. After a meeting of the most involved ministers, Minister Kuipers emphasized that there is nothing against putting on a face mask for people with vulnerable health or for people who are in contact with them.
For those who have complaints themselves, the advice to take a test still applies. Also, people are advised to go into isolation if they test positive. The face mask duty in airplanes and airports remains at customs after the check, but people who travel into the Netherlands no longer need a health certificate. The same advice for travellers will also expire immediately after arrival.
Use CoronaMelder stops
Kuipers also announced that the use of the CoronaMelder will end Friday. From that day on, users of this app will no longer be notified that they have been close to someone infected with the virus.
According to the minister, the acute crisis is over and, due to the high immunity rate and the less sickening omikron variant, the Netherlands is in a phase where the reporter is less useful. A total of 5.9 million people downloaded the app and 2.3 million are still actively using it.
Vaccines Destroyed
Kuipers takes into account that millions of vaccines will soon have to be destroyed. The Netherlands has more than 11 million vaccines available to donate to other countries, but more and more countries have enough stock themselves. It also plays a role that some countries have too little storage capacity and that sometimes the willingness of the population to be vaccinated is small.
Kuipers wants to do everything possible to donate a part, but 3.3 million vaccines may have to be destroyed in the short term, because the expiration date expires.
Corona stays
The minister pointed out today when announcing the easing that the Netherlands now has a declining number of infections and that relatively few people are also hospitalized. “But corona is not gone and does not go away,” he emphasized.
According to the minister, we really have to take into account that the numbers will go up again after the summer. “That this is happening now with this nice weather seems less likely,” he said. Kuipers asks everyone who qualifies to get a repeat shot as much as possible.
The minister estimates that in the first three months of this year, one in three Dutch people had corona. According to him, it is not unreal to take into account 10 million infections in seven months after the summer. “That really requires people everywhere in their own place to look for those measures that reduce the risk of infection.”
In March, most of the corona measures were abolished. Not everyone was happy about that at the time: