Shopping is dangerous? (Or: Issues with corona banners in Amsterdam)

A few weeks back, Amsterdam began an experiment with face masks in certain busier parts of the city (amsterdam.nl). The experiment runs through the end of August, after which it will be evaluated to see if face masks will still be required. This has been a bit controversial, with some store owners reporting that revenue is down up to 40% in comparison with other Dutch shopping streets that do not have this requirement (nltimes.nl).

Some of the streets also have banners hung up between the buildings letting people know which side of the street they should be walking on (see Tweet below).

The problem is that the bottom of the banner contains small pipes to help weigh them down so they do not move around that much in the wind. And what did we have yesterday evening and today? A huge wind storm. It turns out that the pipes were not properly secured, meaning there was a risk that the pipes would fall out, possibly injuring shoppers in the process. Opps! The streets were closed for 3-4 hours today while the fire department removed all of the pipes.

In other news:

• Cafés violating customer privacy with Covid contact data (nltimes.nl). Restaurants, cafés and terraces must now ask you for your contact details, per the Dutch government. It’s not required that you leave your contact details, but it is strongly encouraged. I’m sure the stories linked above won’t help the government’s case, though. Example: a journalist left her contact details at a restaurant. Shortly after she left the restaurant she received a phone call from the bartender asked if she wanted to have a drink with him sometime. What???
• Overvallen door een plensbui? Weerapps minder betrouwbaar door afname vliegverkeer (omroepwest.nl). The title is: Do you find yourself in the middle of an unexpected, quick rain shower? Weather apps are less trustworthy now that there are less flights taking off. The article talks about just that – when a plane takes off it automatically measures the outside temperature and wind speed as it rises in height. That information is also passed on to the Dutch weather service to help predict weather changes. During the lockdown (when flights were very scarce) the Dutch weather service released an extra weather balloon to gather additional data points for their weather reporting.