THE HAGUE, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Netherlands was not well prepared for a protracted, national health crisis, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) concluded in a first sub-report on the pandemic.
"The country's crisis structure and crisis communication proved to be inadequate," the board said in its report published on Wednesday.
"People from all sectors involved in tackling the crisis worked hard and in difficult circumstances. But the effort put in by so many does not detract from the fact that improvements in the crisis approach are both possible and necessary," it said.
The OVV is an independent organization that investigates specific incidents as well as broader safety issues and unsafe situations. This research report examined the Dutch preparations for a pandemic and the approach taken during the first six months of the crisis until September 2020.
"The COVID-19 crisis touched people's lives throughout the world. Here, the health crisis spilled over into the biggest social crisis we have seen in decades," Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the OVV, told a press conference.
"The Netherlands proved to be vulnerable. This was due to the structures the government had in place for the health sector and the crisis response: they fell short given the nature and scope of the crisis," he said.
On Feb. 27, 2020, the first patient tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the Netherlands. In response, the government implemented a series of measures to tackle the crisis, mitigate the risks and develop new knowledge. The COVID-19 pandemic expanded to a crisis encompassing the whole of society, on a scale previously unprecedented in post-war Netherlands.
According to the OVV, the lack of knowledge about the virus and the limitations of the testing policy in place in the investigated period meant that information on the spread of the virus and the effectiveness of the chosen approach was not sufficiently clear.
In a letter included in the report, former Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Hugo de Jonge opposed the claim that the Netherlands was not well prepared for a pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
"Back then, the seriousness and impact of infectious diseases were indeed estimated on the basis of the scientific knowledge at the time," he wrote.
The Dutch government based its decisions on the advice of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT). This was, according to the OVV, a conscious decision, but also meant that the Dutch focus during the first COVID-19 wave became overly fixated on the situation in the hospitals.
"Little attention was paid to the other effects of a crisis that was having an unprecedented impact on nursing homes, education, cultural institutions, and small and medium-sized businesses, among other sectors," the report said.
"These effects turned the health crisis into a wider social crisis. The Dutch Safety Board concludes that the government could have improved the effectiveness of its crisis response by making a greater effort to look further ahead and by seeking advice on a wider range of issues than the effects of the virus on acute care," it said.
Two further sub-reports for the subsequent periods will follow and after that a parliamentary inquiry will start. ■
