Finally a clear voice in the parliamentary inquiry. After hours of fishing for policy structures to visualize organizational charts, asking about preparations and available plans (hasn't the committee done a preliminary investigation?) and fussing about digital meetings or not, heroine Khadija Arib takes the time for a final word, in which she warns against finding the truth as self-evident implicit part of a survey. The chairman then confirms this obviousness. Khadija also politely indicates that she has not yet detected any evidence of truth. The chairman notes that this discovery of the truth takes place here. They are truly seeing blind. You can hear the literal text in the 3-minute video and read it in the transcript below.
Daan de Kort: This brings us to the end of this public hearing...
Khadija Arib: May I make another comment if possible?
Daan de Kort: This is not usual, but as an exception I would like to give you that opportunity.
Khadija Arib: Well, I want to keep it short because you said that in the introduction and I also heard it a few times in your interviews as chairman - not as a person - of the committee of inquiry and the emphasis, which is now also the case, is mainly on learning lessons and looking ahead, the role of the House.
Of course that's fine, but I do miss the emphasis on finding the truth and being accountable. Perhaps you take that for granted, but without finding the truth, without accountability... These are 2 fundamental values in a democratic state where you are accountable for how decisions were made: Who is responsible for what? Perhaps decisions were made that could not have been done differently? Maybe there are also good decisions?
But accountability is also part of a survey. And I certainly think when it comes to corona and its impact on citizens, on entrepreneurs, on police officers and the distrust is so great, that it is incredibly important to provide space for that truth, for truth-finding and accountability. Not to judge people, not even in the pillory, but only then can we learn, including for the future, and learning lessons is not possible without finding the truth. I hope that is also an important part of the survey.
Daan de Kort: In short: it goes without saying that finding the truth is one of our goals. Besides learning, public accountability also takes place here. And our judgment will come, as I indicated earlier in this story, in the 1st quarter of 2027 in our final report and then people can also make a judgment about what they think about it and to what extent that has happened.
Finding the truth
In order to be able to find the truth, the committee should have an idea where they could look for that truth. And they already know that: that is at the RIVM and OMT, so everything is perfect for them. Everything was scientifically substantiated because it came from the RIVM. Ernst van Koesveld, Director General of Long-term Care at VWS, will literally confirm this. If he says it, then it must be true. Baffling on about issues regarding the availability of face masks, an insignificant detail that at best distracts from the incorrect premises, indicates that the committee is clueless or presents itself as such in order to protect the policy failure - if you like: the scam.
The right premises
- After just a few months, Corona turned out not to be a mysterious A disease at all, but an ordinary, very nasty respiratory virus.
- The PCR test was never intended for screening purposes, and is not suitable for that purpose. The controversy surrounding the false positives is still not settled.
- Both test intensity and test cycles were knobs that adjusted the number of infections to be detected, partly blackened WOO documents suggest.
- The jettisoning of conventional prevention (vitamins, fresh air) and first-line treatment has cost many lives, as has the banning of (potentially) effective off-label medication.
- Ignoring pandemic management as recommended by the WHO until 2019 was not justified anywhere, while it has cost a lot of misery and billions of euros (and dollars)
- The aim of lockdowns was to spread deaths over a longer period of time and prevent peaks. The committee thinks that more+heavier+earlier lockdowns = save more lives.
- False safety fueled infections: face masks, 1.5 meters distance, washing hands. All hygienic, but ineffective in combating pandemics because pandemics of respiratory diseases spread through the air. People who believed themselves protected by relying on government advice fell into a trap.
- The rash use of contaminated, poorly researched genetically modified novel injections of inconsistent quality did the rest. To be on the safe side, Ursula von der Leyen had ordered 10 per European on her own initiative, with a total value of €71 billion. As a leader you have to dare to take action.
Zowel de commissie als de getuigen bouwen hun logica op een hele andere, gedeelde waarheid. Zij begrijpen elkaar dus goed. De commissie vindt de waarheid door naar de bekende weg te vragen, open deuren in te trappen en zal daarna concluderen: "Zie je wel, het klopt allemaal." Alleen Arib houdt de mogelijkheid open voor een andere waarheid dan alleen die van de commissie en de andere gezagsdragers.
Ernst van Koesveld
Here we hear the Director General of Long-term Care at VWS (October 2019 – August 2023). You could say that you can expose some fundamental issues to them. Was everything VWS did scientifically substantiated, the committee asked? Yes, certainly, because the advice came from the RIVM and the OMT and dozens of experts had been working on it.
That is the scientific basis of the Director General of Long-term Care at VWS. Of course there is no one there who is doing any serious research. Not necessary at all. Just imagine...
So what will the committee focus on? You'll never guess. Three quarters of the interrogation is lost to PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), nonsense about the distribution of face masks, scarcity of face masks, guidelines with 1.5 meters then you did not need a face mask, who got what when. When the committee talks to this VWS man, they are completely on the same page because they start from the same premises. But no one wonders whether they are correct.
To find something, you have to have an idea of where to look. This also applies to truth. The committee has no idea that there are more truths. After all, their logic is correct. A visit ban in nursing homes seems sensible if you do not know that the virus spread through staff and air circulation. The main result was that thousands of people had to spend their remaining months alone and die just as lonely, without the infections being stopped.
The PBM discussion was a comfortable technocratic debate that allowed anyone to pretend that the problem was in the execution lag. "We hadden te weinig middelen." "De verdeling was oneerlijk." "De richtlijnen waren onduidelijk."
When Van Koesveld announced that there were too few face masks, the OMT advice was: not necessary for casual contact or 1.5 meters distance(!).
When Van Koesveld announced that the shortage was over, the OMT adjusted its advice: face masks were still necessary, even for fleeting contact.
The committee then does not ask how Van Koesveld reconciled that with the medical-scientific substantiation. Instead, the committee seems indignant that it took so long before the advice was made stricter: a face mask even for casual contact. There were a few months in between!
Underlying that outrage are the assumptions that people died unnecessarily due to the delay because Covid was super bad and face masks could have provided protection. In reality, people died unnecessarily because ventilation was not provided.
The real problem was conceptual: the entire conceptual framework is wrong. No one has to justify this, because everyone -OMT, VWS, RIVM, and not least the committee itself- is in exactly the same context.
What the committee does not ask for
- How do you reconcile the scientific substantiation with adjusting advice in response to logistical (and perhaps also political?) signals from outside?
- Why was aerosol transmission ignored for months while the evidence piled up?
- Why were lockdowns implemented when the WHO advised against similar interventions before 2020 as ineffective and harmful?
- Why was the visit ban presented as protection while staff continued to walk around without FFP2?
- Why was the burden of proof for well protect towering high, and for not protection nil?
Instead, we see an hours-long dissection of who got how many masks and when. A product that everyone now knows that it hardly helped, cost a lot of money and caused pollution. Not to mention the humiliating annoyance of people who were forced to walk around with the damned thing on their faces. Even outside...
Een indruk van de WHO guidelines 2019, het "handboek" waar de commissie nadrukkelijk bij Arib naar vraagt1WHO 2019 Non-pharmaceutical public health measures for mitigating the risk and impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza. Bij Arib! Dat hadden ze aan Kluytmans moeten vragen. Alsof een politica op elk mogelijk denkbare ramp het juiste handboek weet te vinden - dat is nou juist wat je aan specialisten vraagt van de specifieke ramp in kwestie. Je merkt hieraan dat de commissie ook in de "pandemic preparedness" kramp is geschoten.
N.B.: "Conditionally recommended" betekent: onder zware voorwaarden, bijvoorbeeld bij zeer ernstige epidemieën. Die zwaarste, uiterste maatregelen komen nog niet eens in de buurt van de totale lockdowns die we over ons heen kregen. Zonder wetenschappelijke onderbouwing.
Footnotes
- 1
Finding the truth in these types of committees is the same as finding the truth in an argument by a high school student. The conclusion is known: the measures were necessary, curfew was necessary, vaccination was the only way to get us out of the pandemic, etc. That truth stands. Then the truth is discussed. To give it the cachet of open, transparent, critical, there is a bit of side-talk and one is allowed to be critical, as long as the conclusion that was already established remains the same.
The only interesting thing about this PEC is the fact that it ALWAYS works like this in meeting clubs. So for those who have never sat in a committee in which policy is 'made', they can now see live how something like this works.
But for me, who has been able to participate in such committees for years, there is nothing new to see under the sun. Whether it was a matter of which medicine should be prescribed, whether a laboratory value had to be adjusted, whether or not patients could be seen in primary care, etc., etc.: the conclusion was already established in advance, like an unwritten rule, which the committee did its best to have those conclusions confirmed scientifically, transparently, objectively.
I'd like to see more of it too, but this is the level.
Arib says it well, and yet it feels dirty: having to be a fig leaf for a committee that talks about matters whose conclusion is already known in advance. This is not a reproach to Karin, I have been a fig leaf for such committees for years, so I know what it feels like: dirty!
Karin=Caribbean. F-ing autocorrect…
I will correct it in 'Arib'. Because I think the autocorrect is playing tricks on you.
Arib should have sat on the other side of the table. As was originally intended. Now she is being 'interrogated'.
Think about that. The system works perfectly. It's a bit like what we still call democracy. There are dissidents, obstructionists, critics, skeptics, whatever you want to call it. But they are somehow subtly sidelined. Omtzigt's position elsewhere was no coincidence. Think of Ronald Plasterk when he came into the picture as Prime Minister. Just at that moment, NRC publishes a 'reveal' and Dick Schoof, the former NCTV boss, is put forward. Plasterk writes wise words in his columns, but goes against the grain of the establishment. In the Telegraaf, the only newspaper where occasional system criticism is allowed. Arib was accused of inappropriate behavior. Through anonymous sources, and her assignment expired. That's what it should be about! Kafka couldn't have done it better.
The original Covid Survey Commission would be led by Kadija Arib. van Houwelingen of FvD was in it, and later Gideon van Meijeren was nominated. Too bad he got out. The result is that we take all official steps that are part of a democratic, open and transparent process. But substantively it is empty.
The established order can check it off its list. The final report will be published in 2027, 7 years after the start of the madness. Some points for improvement will be suggested for 'the next self-inflicted pandemic', but the complete system failure will not be registered. Because the system will never recognize its own failures.
I agree with others here who praise Anton and supporting act who put so much time and energy into creating high quality articles.
It's like Gideon said, so it's a waste of time. He can now spend that time much better on many more of the misery that we face in the Netherlands (and abroad). Indeed respect for Anton 👏
It's cringeworthy. Certainly.
The key question is another one (Marli Huijer, came up with this at the time): shouldn't the elderly have chosen for themselves between quality of life, isolation and/or dying earlier? That is the key question in (non)sensible care. I thought it was strong of the interviewer to conclude that the decision had been made “about” the elderly and not “with” them. That is what the discussion about integrated policy should have been about. The rest was idk. nonsense in the margins.
But some caveats.
You cannot expect a DG to conduct scientific research himself. The OMT and RIVM should have done that well. They must be able to blindly rely on their/our institutions.
What is culpable is the lack of broad consideration. He did say that this would be discussed more later. But well, still far too little... Because I didn't notice much of it. With the exception of that the nursing homes were no longer as closed as in the beginning. You've got to hand it to him.
The “clarification” of the text in the OMT advice about the undesirability of preventive wearing of masks is never medical advice, unless it concerns shortness of breath. A fundamental mistake has been made here by VWS and the OMT: based on the OMT advice, VWS itself should have decided on the basis of the scarcity to declare unnecessary use undesirable. Now they have polluted science with politics. I think this is also one of the issues that OVV raised: role pollution.
It's great that Arib opened up about the unprecedented war with the top officials. Bizarre. But it's also stupid that she didn't just fire that top at the time. Of course, the chairman/presidium could have simply arranged that.
The disproportionality and all the fake news about Corona (measures) has not actually been discussed after 3 days, with the exception of Arib's indirect "tolerance statement" at the very end. If this is the prelude to the interrogation of Rutte/De Jonge, then questions about this will not be asked. And that's a shame!
Normally, I think those who were heard always got the last word. Why not here?????
“You cannot expect a DG to conduct scientific research himself.”
And common sense? A moral compass? Sense of reality? A critical look?
Everyone has to be an apparatchik so… very discouraging. It is precisely because of this desired compliance that stupidity becomes concentrated in power.
ze leggen een eed af en als je die niet naleeft ben je strafbaar, maar mensen onder vragen die ook niet weten wat een eed is. dat heeft zoiets geen zin. zowel van Houwelingen Omzicht, en Renske gaven al meerdere malen toe dat dit geen nut heeft, want je krijgt van tevoren te horen wat je mag vragen.