OMT member and mayor of Den Bosch interrogated on the second day of the corona survey

The parliamentary inquiry into corona policy is entering its first full week and this week – as well as the first day of hearings last Friday – the focus is on the beginning of the pandemic.

Next Friday, a leading actor will appear on the scene for the first time: Jaap van Dissel, then director of the Center for Infectious Disease Control and chairman of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT).

Jan Kluytmans and Jack Mikkers will be heard this Monday.

medical microbiologist and OMT memberJan Kluytmans

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Microbiologist Jan Kluytmans worked at the Amphia hospital in Breda during the corona crisis. He is now head of the Medical Microbiology department at the UMC Utrecht. On March 2, Kluytmans decided to test all patients and staff with flu symptoms at the Amphia, even if they had not been to risk areas such as northern Italy. It also turned out that people who had not been to Italy tested positive, which indicated that the virus was also being spread within the Netherlands.

Kluytmans was a member of the advisory body OMT. In the first phase of the pandemic, he was regularly featured in the media. He later consciously withdrew because of threats, he told the magazine a few years ago Medical Contact: “You lose your open-mindedness. And that open-mindedness is a great asset, especially for a scientist and especially in times of crisis.”

Kluytmans was in the news at the end of 2020 Follow the Money wrote that independent doctors such as Kluytmans made a lot of money from the pandemic by processing the tests. That was correct, Kluytmans said laterbut he called it “a tendentious story. (…) If you know how it works in healthcare, it is really no secret that peripheral hospitals often employ independent specialists: extra procedures simply mean more earnings.”

Mayor Den BoschJack Mikkers

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Mayor Jack Mikkers, like Kluytmans, was also in the middle of the corona fire in North Brabant. Mikkers is mayor of Den Bosch and chairman of the Brabant-Noord Safety Region, one of the three safety regions in that province. The 25 safety regions in the Netherlands coordinated the crisis response surrounding corona.

The Brabant administrators were the first in the Netherlands to cancel events such as concerts, professional football matches and carnival parades. The administrators also called for “seven days of social distancing” (fewer social contacts, no shaking hands, hugging or kissing). This was in anticipation of the cabinet’s decision-making.

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