Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Centre election message

With the abolition of the last corona measures, we left behind the worst crisis since World War II. Tens of thousands of deaths, extreme pressure on healthcare and social disruption taught us a hard lesson: the Netherlands is insufficiently prepared for a large-scale crisis. A crucial weak spot in crisis response was and is our knowledge infrastructure.

In the initial phase, knowledge-based scenarios were lacking, which meant that healthcare and the government had to rely on their ability to improvise. In addition, advice on corona measures relied too heavily on biomedical insights. Qualitative data or insights from non-medical disciplines were largely ignored. As a result, the effectiveness of measures was difficult to predict and the side effects of measures were insufficiently considered in decision-making.

The Pandemic & Disaster Preparedness Centre therefore advocates:

• Maintaining the current structural investments in preparedness during pandemics and water-related disasters
• Investments in an interdisciplinary knowledge base for crisis resilience and shared knowledge infrastructure, such as a crisis cohort and a data hub
• An interdepartmental and knowledge-based policy agenda to enhance crisis resilience in each policy area
• Bringing together multidisciplinary teams to research complex climate and infectious disease issues

In our election message, you can read how investing in our knowledge infrastructure can protect the Netherlands from many crises: Election Message Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center (In Dutch)