Author Archives: Niki

There was another press conference this evening to discuss the current coronavirus measures. Some changes were announced, while other possible changes like the curfew need to be discussed.

• The nightly curfew will be re-examined this weekend to see if it should be extended past 9 February. At the moment there is not enough evidence to say if it is helping or not because the measure has been in effect for less than two weeks.
• Primary schools will re-open for in-person education from 8 February. However if one student tests positive the entire class, including the teacher, need to go into quarantine and then get tested after 5 days.
• Primary school teachers will be eligible for rapid testing
• Secondary schools are closed until at least 1 March, with online education (still) the norm
• Stores will be allowed to open click-and-collect points from 10 February
  • Click-and-click points must be outside
  • You must order online or by telephone, not in person
  • There must be four hours between ordering and picking up
  • You must have a designated time slot for when you can pick up the item
• The “urgent advice” to only have one visitor per day is still in effect

Rutte: Secondary schools could open in March; Curfew under evaluation from nltimes.nl

Basisscholen open en afhalen in winkels, dit zijn de maatregelen voor komende tijd from nos.nl in Dutch (Primary schools open and pickup in stores, these are the corona measures for the coming days)

Persconferentie coronavirus 2 februari: lockdown duurt langer from rijksoverheid.nl (Recap of the press conference in “simple Dutch”, always good for expats)

General link: Coronavirus dashboard (in English) from rijksoverheid.nl

After the Dutch government reported that primary schools would re-open from 8 February, there are now rumors that shops will be able to open for pickup (only) from 10 February (article from nltimes.nl in English). At the same time the “British variant” now counts for half of all infections in the Netherlands as opposed to one-third of the infections last week (article from nos.nl in Dutch).

But, the number of corona cases is dropping in the Netherlands (graph from rivm.nl):

The red line is the 7 day average of the cases. Today we had 3,280 cases, the lowest count since 1 October. However, we are coming out of the weekend and hospital intakes haven’t been falling that fast in comparison.

There is also an article on nos.nl in Dutch: Oproep uit IC-hoek: ‘Versoepel aantal maatregelen, accepteer meer overlijdens’, or Call from [some] workers in the ICU: ‘Relax some measures, accept more deaths’. It’s an interesting take on a very, very sensitive topic – how much damage to society do you accept in exchange for keeping people alive? I am still on the side of ‘keep the measures’, but I do think that care of coronavirus patients cannot always take precedence over other patients (for example cancer patients who might themselves die while waiting for care). But the article is also talking about the social, emotional and financial cost of a continued lockdown.

Heck, I don’t live alone so I always have someone to talk to. I don’t have children who I need to help with homework or entertain on a regular basis. But even I go stir crazy sometimes and I have noticed work has gotten under my skin more often in the last month. I’ve mentioned a few times that what I miss the most is spending a few hours at a café in the weekend just playing around on my computer or tablet while watching the world go by. I want to get back to that, at some point.

I am glad to report that my work week is now over. I think everyone on my team was a bit tired and we all could have used a break at the end of it! Marco and I made the classic Friday night meal of hamburgers and twister fries. The hamburgers had lots of jalapeños, lettuce and onions with yellow mustard for me and sweet habanero sauce (cholula.com) for Marco.

Berlin man suspected of ‘making radio contact with air traffic’ from euronews.com. I first found this one on nu.nl (link in Dutch) and then searched around for an English language version to link to on this blog. Crazy!

Brabander creëert thuiswerkplek in auto om even weg te zijn van kinderen from nu.nl in Dutch (Person from North Brabant creates a home office in car to get away from his kids). The police noticed the car in the woods because the windows were fogging up. In the car they found a large computer screen, table and laptop. The police said they understood why he did it. However, I’m hoping he didn’t leave his partner at home to deal with the kids while also working…

Speaking of which: Cabinet aiming to reopen primary schools on Feb. 8 from nltimes.nl, although even that article stresses that it is a a wish and not a fact. If primary schools are able to re-open then the government would also re-open daycares, to help relieve some of the pressure on working parents. However, others in the government think any relaxation of corona-related measures on February 9 is unlikely (article also from nltimes.nl), so I think we are just going to have to wait and see what happens. There is another press conference planned for next Tuesday.

Have a good weekend, all.