The government phased out crisis response too quickly after the first corona wave, says Hubert Bruls. And the curfew was ‘robust’ but did ‘hurt’

The 25 mayors from the Security Council thought that the cabinet largely scaled down the national crisis structure to combat corona in the summer of 2020 “very quickly”. This is what Nijmegen mayor Hubert Bruls, then chairman of that council, said on Monday to the parliamentary inquiry committee on corona policy.

The first corona wave from the spring of 2020, which was accompanied by drastic measures, had just ended. “It went on a pilot light. We thought: it’s better to keep that structure, we just got a good start.”

The mayors still met at the end of July 2020 to discuss corona, but no longer formally spoke to the cabinet. “We were removed from that crisis structure. We would have preferred it not to be that way.”

According to Bruls, it seemed to be a “beautiful summer”, but the mayors were concerned about, among other things, allowing large events again and the risk that they would cause many infections, despite the one and a half meter rule. “We thought: you shouldn’t open everything up too quickly,” Bruls told the committee.

When the number of infections rose again at the end of September 2020, Bruls, as chairman of the Security Council, was again involved in crisis consultations with the cabinet.

Emergency regulations

According to Bruls, it was inevitable that the cabinet mainly took corona measures through emergency regulations, with mayors becoming responsible for implementation. According to him, this already became apparent during a “crucial” consultation with the cabinet on March 3, 2020, when the first infections had just been detected in the Netherlands.

“You didn’t have the time to set up a tight national organization,” Bruls said. “It was then noted: the disease is spreading very quickly, we have to organize this now.” From that moment on, after the Catshuis meeting, the cabinet issued instructions for measures, which were incorporated into an emergency regulation by the Security Council. This was then introduced in all 25 safety regions.

In this method came a lot of criticismpartly because the regulations were not ratified by a municipal council. But according to Bruls it was the most workable and only way to quickly implement measures. In addition, crucial bodies in the implementation of the measures, such as the police and the Municipal Health Service, fell under the responsibility of municipalities and the security region. “It was realized that you really needed us.”

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Curfew

Bruls also reflected on the introduction of the curfewin January 2021. According to him, it was “one of the most robust measures” and it was “much easier to check whether someone is allowed to be on the street than whether people are sitting one and a half meters apart in a park.”

The Security Council supported the curfew, although some mayors had doubts, according to Bruls, because the measure would temporarily deprive people of “an essential fundamental right”. Jack Mikkers, mayor of Den Bosch, expressed that doubt also during his interrogation last week. Bruls: “There has also been a warning: this can lead to tensions that can erupt.” Introduction of the curfew indeed led to large-scale riots and threats from mayors.

Bruls: “In a direct sense, it has never been demonstrated what exactly the curfew achieved. But we were in the middle of a winter lockdown and the infections did not fall fast enough. The argument that this meant fewer trips, that it became more difficult to go to a party, that appealed to me. With all the pain and effort.”

‘No criticism of VWS’

Towards the end of the interrogation, Bruls said that in the next major crisis, the Prime Minister should take more charge – or else the Minister of Justice. According to him, the Ministry of Health (VWS) was leading during the corona crisis.

Bruls: “That is absolutely not a criticism of VWS. But if you know one thing, you automatically become more involved in crisis management. Initially this was a health crisis, but it soon became a socio-economic crisis.”

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