It was a wild night here in France, after the 3-1 win over Senegal. A few houses further on, a group of French people had gathered to watch the match. They must have found each other through a fan club on Tiktok or something, because for some reason they were all supporters of France! That doesn't seem like a coincidence to me. I wouldn't call it a conspiracy either, but after every French goal, the neighborhood burst out with exuberant joy. After the match the noise was supplemented with honking and car alarms going off.
There were no fans of Senegal in this area, it seemed (there was silence after their goal). But on TV you could see that they do exist. You could easily distinguish them from the France fans, although I cannot explain exactly how you could see that because I don't want to be accused of racism. And you shouldn't generalize. In any case, there were clearly two groups that united around a specific narrative. One group “Senegal is the best, who will and must win” and the other group “France is the best, who will and must win”. These seem to be opposing ideologies, with different external characteristics, but fundamentally they show more similarities than differences.
People like to join groups of like-minded people around sports teams, concepts, preferences, brands, stories, heroes, whatever phenomenon. This herd formation is also a survival strategy because anyone who walks with a herd has many advantages. You have supporters around you and as long as everyone keeps walking, you can walk along without much worry - but you have to go in the same direction. You are safest in the middle of the herd. Weak calves that do not keep up with the herd are naturally left behind. If you think your herd is hurtling towards a ravine and you choose a different direction, you will end up alone. Then in one fell swoop you lose everything you've been running for your whole life. So it's better not to think about it too much and in any case not to act on it.
Institutes are formalized herds
Marianne Zwagerman wondered how it is possible that Diederik Gommers, such a man of integrity who saw what was happening, ultimately participated in the draconian, inhumane policy that The System produced. That has everything to do with group formation around ideas. If you clearly define such a group from the start, carefully select the supply and frustrate obstructions with a hierarchy that filters by serving the shared vision, you will build a close-knit, self-purifying team. That's what institutionalization does. This is how you form a government institution with unity and decisiveness.
The danger of every bubble (we in turn think): group think/tunnel vision, sect formation, irrational beliefs - but that is the problem of people who think differently, not of the institution that has to implement a mandate. That only makes themselves stronger and more powerful, and preferably untouchable. After all, critics of the institute are anti-institutional, anti-democratic, dangerous to the state and (provided government policy presents itself as 'left') extreme right.
Anyone who applies to such an institute is of course prepared to conform to the objectives. Otherwise you shouldn't apply there. A strong personal vision - and certainly a non-conformist one - does not help. It is better to align that vision with the agenda and system of the institute. Otherwise you cannot help build. Appropriate prior training that has put you on the right track is recommended. On the other hand, a conscience and a strong backbone make you hopeless because at best you will remain floundering somewhere at the bottom of the hierarchy, if you can even survive in such an environment.
So that's how it works. The fact that 90% of Senegal supporters were black and 90% of France supporters were white has nothing to do with rational considerations, with race or with football qualities. That's just where you come from, which bubble you're in and how you move with your proximity, your social network. Your culture, your country.
Drivers interrogated, traffic controller out of harm's way
De parlementaire enquête toetst het gedrag van de poppetjes aan de hand van institutionele protocollen en (nood)wetgeving, die door de instituten zelf pro-actief naar hun hand zijn gezet, met het oog op voorgenomen beleid. Dat is nogal een circulaire benadering. Er zou in het rapport altijd nog een konijn uit de hoge hoed kunnen worden getrokken maar als ik vandaag weer zag hoe onwennig het woord 'hydroxychloroquine' door de commissieleden werd gebezigd (in eerste instantie wat giechelend, "moeilijk woord"), lijkt mij dat ijdele hoop.
The big issues are therefore about The System itself, the constellation of institutions, not about the puppets walking around within it. Focusing on those individuals ignores the undesirable effects of concentrations of power, such as institutions that are inviolable in practice.
Seen in this light, the parliamentary inquiry is a tabloid approach to a global systemic issue. As long as there are faces to be seen, it still feels like accountability. A thumbs up for tens of thousands of deaths. Don't do that again!
P.S.: Clear interrogation from Rob Elens. The questions he received were at times without direction or actually already answered. I would have liked to hear that the passing mention of one and a half meters and face masks had also included something about aerosols. Or actually: asked. But these are topics that the committee is certainly not interested in, even though it concerns everyone. That will happen with Maurice, then he can also be put in a predictable box.
When posting from France I discovered that this website is blocked due to phishing and fraud. French people who are members of SFR are therefore denied access to virusvaria.nl. But hey, such a provider is only an information mediator, an oil man.
A traffic controller who can swear under oath with his hand on his heart that he has never been behind the wheel. And then an investigative committee will question the drivers who followed the designated route. Enough for now, greetings from France!
I think SFR is bankrupt, but of course they still have to perform their duties, hihi.
Indeed!
https://frankrijkactueel.nl/posts/verkoop-van-sfr-miljoenen-telecomcontracten-in-frankrijk-mogelijk-verdeeld-over-drie-providers
paradigm shift like losing a football team 🙂
Ha! The analogies are out there! Once you realize it, you can't unsee it.
I have seen the tears in Gommers' eyes. I've heard people talk about it like: it's great that he said it. I saw it differently myself. I saw no pity in Gommers' tears for the dead who died alone thanks to Gommers' support, I only saw self-pity in Gommers' eyes. Well, people like Gommers, you shouldn't want to make too much of it. They indeed want to participate in the group, that is their habit. In a WOO document (I don't remember which one... I believe it's about the curfew) Gommers makes this very clear when he says: You don't think that I alone can change an entire policy? -Which describes the problem with his character: he has no choice but to join the mob. He cheers on the team, but he's not a player. A And left-And right snollebolleke (to use another word than herring).
As an IC dead person who now knows better (in my view the dead are omniscient), I would look at Gommers' self-pity and laugh amiably: still nothing learned. Still not realizing what it means to take responsibility for something yourself. Still a spectator who thinks in his nursery room that he is a top athlete because he collects football cards and has the highest say in the schoolyard. A toddler cast in the body of an adult. That's Gommers.
The analogy of Gommers' behavior with a football fan is conclusive: having no influence on the game, but still feeling very powerful. And if the team loses, they get invited to a talk show and say: we should have done that differently then.
I consider myself happy knowing that today most people are still not interested in football. But you don't hear them, they remain decent and think: if you like that football so much, then that's the way it should be. And so it is with everything. And that's how it should be. A cat (not a football fan) always knows how to find its own way.
Have a good holiday Anton!
Agree about Gommers. I personally know employees of his in the ICU at the time of corona who already painted the picture of someone who had no idea what he was doing. Tossed back and forth, that too. What I was happy with were his statements about the corona patients in the ICUs. He was then sitting at a talk show table with Peter van der Voort (I thought Jinek). Van der Voort started talking about it and Gommers explained that they were people who were at least obese. This was also discussed in the PEC hearing. People of color with a different cultural background also kept the ICU beds occupied for a very long time because, from their background, people wanted to continue treatment endlessly and keep them alive. There have been lawsuits about it and patients have been flown to Turkey, for example. And to think that most people in primary care could have been helped. And all those other unnecessary deaths... I am also in France and watched football among the French in a pub. They were dead quiet for the first half and only a male companion of mine grumbled in Dutch about the “bad” game. He does this at every sporting match and always about the players he is supporting at that moment. He cheered along with the French in the second half. It was celebrated very quietly here in this region, so the Dutch supporter stood out even more... My internet here in France is now starting to warn me about this site more and more often. I have already finished Dan Brown's new book, I normally hardly read fiction, but the subject will also interest you Willem, I understand from your response about the dead being omniscient. Perhaps they "ghost" Gommers every now and then and his tears were/are about that too. France (the whole country) is my second home and in 2019 I started to worry about nutrition and wanted to write a book with a child, but I never got around to it. Yet nutrition is not (alone) the cause of the enormous increase in semi-paralyzed people (cerebral hemorrhage?) who fill the streets here. In the Netherlands, fit people such as Vigo Waas and Erben Wennemars are also victims. Anton, have a nice holiday and enjoy this beautiful country!
Thank you Willem. It's only a week (and that's fine with me).
Great responses to this article, which once again makes you think. I don't have much more to add, so just a quick note.
Football is a tribal battle. Mark van Vugt has written a nice book about this: FC sapiens. The opponent is the enemy and does everything wrong. And then of course there is the analogy with 'bread and circuses' with which the mob in Rome was kept calm. There is actually nothing new under the sun. It all comes from our hunter/gatherer past. We are not rational beings. Well, one maybe more than the other :-).
But now first a few weeks away. Have fun in France, Anton.
Dank Cees!
Gommers is a good guy. But I can't make it work. I've been following him pretty closely. It is full of contradictions... I have also included his very positive statements in the Bar debate with the youth.
Read and be amazed….
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Gommers June 15, 2026
Made very remarkable and contradictory statements, which of course were not questioned further.
There was a crackling argument between him and Rutte/De Jonge about the 80-year age in the triage protocol.
He was ashamed that elderly people died lonely and alone for a number of weeks in hospitals/ICUs and nursing homes. We really should never do that again.
He stated that the virus was not as stupidly deadly as it was made out to be; the problem was that almost no one was immune to it anymore.
He did not comment explicitly on the school closures.
Then we saw a completely different Gommers.
Contradictory is that he says that the OMT provides medical epidemiological advice and that the BAO, MCCb and the Cabinet make a broader assessment. And that that is also good. But at the same time he went on TV several times to peddle his much stricter position on earlier and stricter lockdowns. Both cannot be correct. He then admitted that, in retrospect, reducing the measures more quickly in May 2020 was correct. Only to go full blast again later in the year for a quick, intense lockdown during the second wave.
Gommers stated that there were more than enough spaces and equipment available fairly early on; only ICU nurses was a mega problem in the beginning and much more later. No further questions were asked when Gommers said that Corona patients were not being treated in the ICU. They only received ventilation and had to be "turned" regularly, according to him. Then I would ask: but you don't need super-trained, highly educated ICU nurses for that, do you? Incomprehensible.
About his statements on December 30, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5g0C9_Bhzg with commentary and in full https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB0GShoXw9g they did not return: he then said that it was no longer possible to explain why no distinction was made for young people because of their much lower risk profile. In that interview he was also critical of mass vaccination. It seemed as if he stopped after the 1st booster, because he feels healthy and therefore has a good immune system. Furthermore: Corona = peanuts, is actually a nothing virus [for young people], it hardly makes us sick. His statements were immediately heavily downplayed by Peter vd Voort (D66 Senate and intensivist in Groningen). BNN/VARA and Joop were also quick to put Gommers' statements into perspective: https://www.bnnvara.nl/joop/artikelen/debatcentrum-de-balie-verknipt-interview-met-diederik-gommers-tot-nepnieuws He himself has also “qualified” his statements.
Well, who was the real Gommers? That's what you'll ask yourself after this interrogation... Yet the advocate for early strict measures, who even if he later turned out to be wrong, still cheerfully continues with his claims. He was a bit disappointing to me; I thought he was really more convinced of the disproportionality of all measures.
Gommers hides behind the formal structure (the OMT only provides medical-epidemiological advice), but at the same time abused his media status to exert political pressure. This touches on the core of the parliamentary inquiry: the interweaving of science and politics, where politicians hid behind 'science' and scientists took the seat of politics.
He was and still is a very committed intensivist, but in my opinion not suitable for making macro policy. He typically suffers from Orr & Wolff's Rule of Rescue.
Those people in the committee have been poorly or selectively informed about all the “contradictions”. While by definition that is where most of the ammunition can be found during such an investigation!
Shocking, more shocking, most shocking?
That sweet lady from the Inspectorate?
Maybe…. But we still get Hugo; oh no, sorry Mr Elens, it is Minister De Jonge…. And we ask the questions here!
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Marina Eckenhausen June 19, 2026 DG of the IGJ
In summary: A wolf in sheep's clothing.
On the one hand, a super nuanced and well-thought-out broad consideration story (youth, schools, forgotten healthcare domains, individual versus collective interests, etc.). But on the other hand, send a letter (on 12-12-2020 together with the NZA) to demand a strict lockdown. Internally conflicted, hypocritical.
On the one hand, a nice story about “letting the field evolve” and bringing about healthcare innovations. But on the other hand, for the first time ever, GPs are being dealt with harshly, without any manifest risks, who appear to be curing patients with off-label drugs, on the basis of suddenly strictly applied legislation and regulations. Internally conflicting, selective enforcement.
On the one hand, a strict reliance on thorough scientific substantiation of the safety and effectiveness of medicines and, on that basis, a strict crackdown on doctors who prescribed HCQ (with zinc + azithromycin); on the other hand, without any criticism, having an mRNA vaccine prescribed en masse that has not been tested, even to people with a 0= risk for Corona, for which a lot of side effects appeared in the Pfizer trials and during the first introduction, and which has caused a huge unexplained, still not well-researched, excess mortality since 2022 - 2024. Internally contradictory, selective use of the scientific method.
And all this interspersed with “neat” process criticism, which had also been provided by the OVV; she also referred to that, because she had also been interviewed by the OVV.
As in previous hearings, these discrepancies and substantive aspects were not discussed. It gets stuck at process level. Of course, further questions should have been asked about these 3 fundamental contradictions...
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The government sometimes gave overly strict instructions for implementation. IGJ was also regularly attacked by this. Nursing homes, disabled care and mental health care have also suffered greatly from the closures. You have to give people confidence that they can realize innovation themselves in practice, especially in the crisis because a lot is unclear. The starting point at IGJ was that they would always look carefully at the context. We do not participate in opinions and therefore do not watch TV; IGJ is derived from or subordinate to government policy. At the same time, the IGJ is independent. So she doesn't give any personal opinion. Even afterwards, she has “no opinion” about whether it was a good decision. Risk: the mayor in wartime: cooperating on matters that are actually substantively flawed. They have not enforced facility closures and visitation regulations. The IGJ did demand that agreements be made with the Works Council and the patient council in the event of deviations. Patient organizations would have liked the IGJ to check inside (because of safety? or because of inhumanity [= also quality?]); that remained unclear.
IGJ did not actually belong in the BAO; had no added value. Pieces were much too late. There was insufficient time for experts from the IGJ to look at OMT advice. You already heard on the radio what was going to happen, while the BAO still had to come. So that seemed pretty pointless.
Those who asked for more attention also received more. More attention was needed for the entire society in addition to the Zkh. care, but especially for other care domains. She missed debate, also in the House of Representatives, about, for example, the negative consequences of school closures. A pandemic cannot be the sole responsibility of one minister (De Jonge): it requires all disciplines. It's bigger than just medical. Disadvantage in education leads to lifelong disadvantage in health (15 years difference in healthy life years with lower education). IGJ has drawn a lot of attention to this [and asked for a strict lockdown on 12-12-2020...].
In een pandemie is de vraag hoe je bij schaarste tot een eerlijke verdeling komt. Collectief belang versus individu belang. Geldt ook voor organisaties: alleen je eigen zaakjes of voor het hele land.
Tot zover klinkt het allemaal heel verstandig.
Eind 2020 (12 december, brandbrief samen met de NZA) hebben ze gedrukt om snel een lockdown te regelen. {En die andere sectoren dan? Plots niet meer belangrijk?]. En dus had de IGJ toch invloed bij de besluiten c.q. probeerde toch politieke druk uit te oefenen. Ze heeft zelf ook Zkh. gebeld over achtergehouden bedden, om LCPS te helpen. Dus ook gewoon operationele activiteiten i.p.v. alleen onafhankelijk toezicht.
There has never been Code Black. But Zkh. may have taken decisions to avoid Code Black. Only when there is not one bed available nationally will decisions about access to care be made on non-medical grounds = Code Black.
Ze wil niet ingaan op de casus van Elens. In alle landen speelde dit (dat is relevant: waarom? Off label wordt namelijk zo massaal voorgeschreven, dat niemand zich daar normaal druk over maakt, tenzij mensen er van doodgaan). Zorgverleners mogen een mening hebben. IGJ grijpt in bij potentiele risico’s. Het gaat om toepassen van regels. IGJ kan geen ruimte nemen over interpretatie van geneesmiddelenwet. Er is toetsing met medisch ethische commissies over wat wel/niet in richtlijnen staat. Off-label kun je bij geval voorschrijven. Als kinderarts kon het niet anders, maar de beroepsgroep heeft dat dan onderbouwd met wetenschappelijk bewijs en vervolgens geïndiceerd (blijkt volgens dissertatie van dr. TM van der Zanden niet te kloppen; ze pleit wel voor meer onderzoek en protocollen t.a.v. wat nu off-label wordt voorgeschreven). Ook in crisis moet je gewoon onderzoek doen voor off-label voorschrijven. We hebben zorgvuldige wetten en toetsing voor je iets mag testen op patiënten [maar voor mRNA geldt die strengen toetsing dus kennelijk niet]
IGJ heeft Elens gewoon verwezen naar zijn beroepsgroep voor onderzoek. Ze heeft de ruimte niet gezien om niet te handhaven op basis van de geneesmiddelenwet en staat er nog steeds achter. De boete van €150k communiceren is achteraf niet OK; want dat geldt alleen voor grote organisaties met een miljoenen omzet, nooit voor individuele huisartsen. [Die kregen “slechts” een boete van €12.000,=].
Je moet ook in crisistijd hard maken dat de baten groter zijn dan de kosten [mooi, maar hoeft dat dan voor een lockdown niet?].
Iedereen, dus ook de minister, mag de IJG benaderen waar ze zorgen over hebben. Dus een brief van De Jonge is heel normaal.
Er zijn processen in de IGJ wat je wel of niet oppakt; dat gaat op prioriteit: alles wat je wel doet, impliceert namelijk dat je een heleboel ook niet controleert.
Er is geen enkel verband tussen het verzoek van De Jonge en het oppakken van de zaak van Elens. Er kwamen namelijk ernstige bericht uit internationale kringen met bijwerkingen over hartritme stoornissen [van een middel dat al decennia met succes voor malaria wordt voorgeschreven….. rara].
De minister kan de IGJ wel een aanwijzing geven, maar dan moeten de beide Kamers geïnformeerd worden. Zij heeft dus 100% onafhankelijk beslist om achter Elens aan te gaan.
Hier vind je al mijn beschouwingen. Het zijn geen objectieve verslagen; dat kan ik echt niet opbrengen……
Link: Parlementaire enquête Corona beleid na Dag 1 al een mislukking.docx of https://janvdzanden-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/jan_janvdzanden_onmicrosoft_com/IQCqQJkw5_ssSqlfYggj-eJhAb7t0Mn06NTdeRt2NphxCUc?e=edcl1B