Toward 30,000 children pulled from swimming lessons after Friday as QR code expiry kicks in

The cabinet intends to introduce the European expiry date for the QR code, which means that from Friday onward more than half a million adults will be turned away at the door. Swimming safety is already under pressure due to the more than 15,000 children who have been pulled from swimming lessons because their parents aren't allowed into the pool—leaving them at potential risk this summer. The House of Representatives is debating the QR code today, and it must take seriously the doubling upon doubling of the number of children who will soon be taken out of swimming lessons, and step in to safeguard swimming safety.

As of Friday 4 February, the cabinet plans to introduce an expiry date for the notorious coronavirus entry pass. For a rough 540,000 adults, the QR code will lapse because they haven't received their booster shot in time.

If the cabinet has its way, the coronavirus entry pass will be valid for 270 days after the most recent vaccination. The House of Representatives is skeptical but appears to be reluctantly going along with it. This automatically means that from this weekend onward, hundreds of thousands of parents will be unable to enter the pool because of an invalid QR code. 

For months now, a fierce battle has been waged to keep swimming safety from being undermined by the coronavirus entry pass, because right now around 15,000 children are going without swimming lessons. Depending on parents' choice to get vaccinated or not, a large number of parents can't help their own child change clothes and can't watch their own child during lessons. As a result, many are choosing to "postpone" swimming lessons. It's a serious problem that this validity period—combined with declining willingness to get vaccinated—will make many times worse, both in scope and in the resulting harm. 

Minister Kuipers is thereby continuing down the European path that his predecessor Hugo de Jonge had set out on. While D66 MP Wieke Paulusma points to the consequences for Dutch citizens going on holiday who will soon no longer have a valid coronavirus entry pass, and CDA MP Joba van den Berg says she understands 'the importance of consistent rules across Europe.' "But what are the downsides if we, as the Netherlands, deviate from that?" Everyone seems blind to the two-year-long lobby for swimming safety in the Netherlands.

In just over six months it will be the summer holidays, and more than 15,000 children will be left exposed around the water, unable to swim, or unable to swim well enough, and accompanied by parents. It appears that the cabinet, with freshly appointed Minister Kuipers, is set to let this number more than double while no longer paying any attention to the resulting harm. 

Members of the House of Representatives would do well to dig up their inboxes from the past two years and revisit all the arguments sent by the Nederlandse Stichting Water- & Zwemveiligheid in dozens of letters before they head into the debate with Minister Kuipers. The swimming safety of more than 30,000 children lies in their hands—so let them seize this opportunity with both hands.

In response to:

https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/ruim-half-miljoen-nederlanders-hebben-vrijdag-geen-groen-vinkje-meer-in-hun-coronapas~a623db60/