This afternoon the Dutch House of Representatives and the ruling Dutch cabinet held a debate about corona measures in the Netherlands. This debate followed the press conference that was held on Monday evening. During Monday’s press conference the cabinet urgently advised that face masks be worn in shops in the bigger cities, including here in The Hague.
The Dutch government has now gone a step further with their urgent advisory to say that face masks should be worn in all public indoor areas where people gather in the Netherlands – not just in shops and not just in the large cities. The advisory went into immediate effect, unlike Monday’s advisory which went into effect Tuesday evening. As noted a few days ago, they can’t (yet) require face masks to be worn as the law would first need to be altered.
Rutte: Face masks “urgently advised” in public places from nltimes.nl
Ook kabinet: dringend advies om mondkapje te dragen in binnenruimtes from nos.nl. In this article the prime minister said that if these measures fail the next steps might be a complete closure of the retail branch, including restaurants and cafés, or a shutdown of all sports. In other news articles they have said an evening curfew could not be ruled out, either. Since this went into immediate effect, the cabinet has said that they will release full details of the advisory on Friday. Think of things like what spaces are considered “indoors” and “public”, etc.
I feel like the Netherlands is pretty late here (in Germany and Belgium face masks have been the norm for some weeks now), but every little bit helps.
Life in the Hague 