Very important long-read (only available in Dutch) in yesterday's Volkskrant, revealing the extent to which the Dutch Cabinet and the OMT (Outbreak Management Team), an ostensibly independent scientific advisory body, have grown entangled.
Some key points:

1/ As early as March of last year OMT-members were uncomfortable with the way then PM Rutte blurred the lines between policy steeped in political considerations, and scientific advise in his March 16 speech, discursively rendering the OMT responsible for political decisions.

2/ OMT-member Alex Friedrich, an early advocate for large-scale testing and masks, describes how dissent was not tolerated, especially after the Dutch gov't declared all OMT-advise as "practically holy," and says that politicians were using the OMT as "a heat-shield."

3/ He further tells of how international scientific consensus (masks, the role of children in transmission, presymptomatic infectiousness) was still up for debate in the Netherlands, all through the summer of 2020.

Friedrich: "Positions taken earlier were defended, instead of welcoming new ones [insights]." One of the worst things that can happen to a scientist, he says, "[is] that people start saying you're not a team player if you don't share the same position [on advice/insights etc]."