Intensive care consultants at eight of the Netherlands' largest hospitals have taken the unprecedented step of writing an open letter to caretaker premier Mark Rutte and each of his ministers, demanding urgent action to curb the latest spike in coronavirus infections in the country.
The letter warns that intensive care units risk being "overwhelmed" after the daily number of new Covid-19 cases in the Netherlands quadrupled to more than 7,000 during October – following the abandonment of social distancing in September.
The letter, which the doctors circulated to the media, also goes over the heads of the politicians and appeals directly to the Dutch public to do everything they can to reduce the growing number of infections as quickly as possible.
“As the heads of intensive care departments at each of the university hospitals, we and our staff have done everything possible in pressurised circumstances over the past year and a half to provide critical treatment for everyone who needed it,” it says.
“We are asking for urgent action from members of the cabinet and from members of parliament, but we are also asking all the citizens of the Netherlands to do whatever they can to help to reverse this worrying upward trend.”
The letter ends: “We are going to the media now because we are at breaking point.”
Limited restrictions
Following talks with the national outbreak management team at the weekend, Mr Rutte and his health minister, Hugo de Jonge, are expected to announce on Tuesday evening some restrictions aimed at helping hospitals.
However, Mr de Jonge conceded on Monday that the options under discussion were limited.
“It’s not easy to find new measures that will work because it’s predominantly unvaccinated people who need medical care, and who have the highest risk of getting infected and of infecting others.”
Some 84.5 per cent of the Dutch adult population have been fully vaccinated, and four out of every five Covid-19 patients in intensive care are unvaccinated.
Heart surgeons also warned at the weekend that 4,000 patients whose operations had been postponed earlier in the pandemic now faced having them delayed again due to the increasing pressure on intensive care.
That meant that heart surgery had to "compete" on a one-to-one basis with other conditions requiring intensive care beds, such as Covid-19, according to Jerry Braun, chair of the cardiothoracic surgeons' association.
In the Bible Belt town of Staphorst, with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, the local council is fitting air filters in all 250 primary school classrooms to try to prevent the spread of the virus among children and teachers.
The pensioners’ union, ANBO, said 90 per cent of its members backed a return to social distancing and obligatory masks in shops.
