The Dutch government on Wednesday advised the public not to wear masks to slow the spread of coronavirus, cautioning their effectiveness remains unproven.
The Minister for Medical Care Tamara van Ark made the decision after a review by the country’s National Institute for Health (RIVM).
Instead the official advice is for better adherence to social distancing rules after a surge in coronavirus cases over the past seven days, Van Ark said at a press conference in The Hague, Reuters reports.
“Because from a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks, the Cabinet has decided that there will be no national obligation for wearing non-medical masks” Van Ark said.
RIVM chief Jaap van Dissel cited studies that show masks help slow the spread of disease but remained unconvinced they will do anything to counter coronavirus outbreak in the Netherlands.
He argued wearing masks incorrectly, together with worse adherence to social distancing rules, could increase the risk of transmitting the disease.
“So we think that if you’re going to use masks (in a public setting) … then you must give good training for it,” he said.
The decision followed a meeting of health and government officials after new coronavirus cases in the country rose to 1,329 in the past week, an increase of more than a third. The case level has since flattened out.
As Breitbart News reported, the Dutch have taken a different path in their reaction to the global pandemic almost from the first moment it was discovered.
Shops have remained open and families cycle along in the sunny summer weather in the Netherlands, which has opted for what it calls an “intelligent lockdown” to meet the coronavirus threat.
What is ridiculous is the refusal to admit that being tested positive for the virus almost always means no more than that one’s immune system is successfully working to develop resistance to it.
Things develop quickly. Although wearing a face mask is not yet obligatory nation wide, there are already tests in place forcing people to wear masks in certain areas in major cities. If you refuse to wear a mask in those areas, it will cost you 95 Euro’s. So while it is not being enforced nationally, it is already being done locally in some places. There are critical lawmakers, privacy experts and law professors voicing their concerns on national tv, but the mayor of Rotterdam doesn’t seem to care about these concerns…