Over the weekend I went to Xenos, a local store, to purchase additional face masks. That particular mission was successful, luckily. I also spent a few minutes staring at all of the holiday displays in the store. Halloween, Sinterklaas (December 5) and Christmas all in one day. I’m sure if they celebrated Thanksgiving in this country you would have seen turkeys as well.
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.
Since 18:00 this evening residents of The Hague have been strongly advised (but not legally required) to wear a face mask when inside a shop. When I went to Albert Heijn this morning I would say about 60% of those I saw in the store were wearing a mask, even though it wasn’t 18:00 yet.
This does put retail in a tough position. Bijenkorf (a high-end department store) has said they will require face masks in the larger cities where the advisory is in place. Most shops have declined to do so at the moment, however. It is asking a lot of workers to also control face mask usage. The stores would prefer that the government adjusts the law so that it is legally required across the country. At the moment the law does not support the government forcing its citizens to wearing a face mask; it can be challenged in court.
Dutch retail groups won’t enforce face masks, ask for national regulations from dutchnews.nl
More and more cabinet members are in favor of requiring face masks across the country, versus the regional measures that are in place now. NOS.nl has this article in Dutch: Steeds meer stemmen in Tweede Kamer voor mondkapjesplicht (More and more politicians in the House of Representatives are in favor of a face mask requirement). I think the government will wait and see what the effects are for the recent measures first before adding new ones, however. It depends on how the country is doing in about 10-14 days.
The Dutch ministry of Health has also released their weekly Covid-19 statistics – see more at rivm.nl in English. It is to be expected. For instance there were 19,326 cases in the last week compared to 13,471 cases in the week before that.
I just read that The Hague’s library system has requested that all visitors wear face masks. They have also requested that you register your visit and answer some health related questions, preferably in advance although at the door is possible as well. In that case you can either scan a QR code to register online or fill out a paper form if the other options aren’t possible. For the moment both links are in Dutch; it’s not available on their English website (yet).
I’m hoping that the events of the last few days lead to face masks because more normalized in Dutch society. Time will tell.
So. I’ve kind of ignored the elephant in the room, but it’s not going that great in Europe and it’s not going that great in the Netherlands either. We’re around 3,000 infections a day and they are expecting 5,000 infections by the end of next week regardless of what we do now. Therefore the Dutch prime minister and the Minister of Health, Wellness and Sport held another evening press conference today to discuss new measures, both country-wide and measures for Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague. They pointed out that we are at a crossroads: if we don’t see a positive effect from these measures within 10-14 we might be heading for another “intelligent lockdown” again. Hmm.
Here are some of the measures (but not all, see the links below for more information). More regional measures might still follow. Most are country-wide except the first one about face masks.
Continue readingI saw something cool in Rijswijk’s In de Bogaard shopping centre: a Blokker store with a map by the entrance:
The map makes it easier to see where you need to go before you enter the store so that you don’t mindlessly wander up and down the aisles (and up and down again, seriously) trying to find what you are looking for. And the store map goes perfectly with one of their corona measures: Koop doelgericht or “Buy purposefully”. In other words, know what you want (when possible), get in, get out. Kudos. More stores should have maps at the entrance and/or provide them online.
So Blokker is pretty smart. For a less than smart company, try the Samen restaurant in The Hague. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. For the last few months the rule in the Netherlands has been that up to 100 people could gather inside or outside, including restaurants. But since it is going in the wrong direction (we’re up to 3,000 cases per day now, from nltimes.nl) a lot of places are only allowed to have 50 people inside or outside. Including The Hague. And then you get this…
Crowded Hague restaurant busted with 200 guests; Covid rules allow only 50 from nltimes.nl. (nos.nl reported that it was 200-300 guests.)
While most of the blame must lie with the restaurant, I think people must be mathematically challenged if they don’t turn around when they see the actual restaurant area and demand their money back. I’m trying to give some people the benefit of the doubt, since if you came early it probably wasn’t that busy… but really, people. Come on.
Happy Saturday all. Yesterday’s “highlight” was getting drenched by Storm Odette (article from regio15.nl in Dutch). I did have a rain jacket with me, though, and I knew I wasn’t going to get back home without getting thoroughly drenched. I tried to stall a bit in the Albert Heijn by the Holland Spoor train station, but really there’s only so many rows of food you can browse before you get bored.
By the time I got home my rain jacket and the bottom of my jeans were thoroughly drenched. A napkin in my backpack also fell victim to the wind and the rain. Luckily Marco was home so I could stand outside the front door and hand him my jacket and backpack before taking a step inside. After that it just a matter of getting into dry clothes as soon as possible.
I learned two things yesterday:
And for some strange news – from bbc.com: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months. I can’t believe it took 18 months to solve this, but I’m sure the villagers were excited to finally not having internet issues anymore. And the fact that someone was so into routine that they would turn on their TV every day at the same exact time…? That’s crazy.
And because everyone needs to see a rat with a mini medal:
For the first time in my life (at least, that I can remember) it was useful to pay attention to the safety notice sent out by the local grocery store, Albert Heijn. In this case the notice was about the sesame bagels they sell. I first heard about the issue on Tuesday when they sent customers an email about it.
I’ll admit I had no idea what “gewasbeschermingsmiddelen” was, but Marco explained it was basically pesticides – during a routine safety check they noticed that the amount of pesticides left over on the sesame seeds was too high. After the email I didn’t think too much about it for two reason. First, because the original dates listed didn’t match the date on our package and second because we already ate two of the four bagels over a week ago and didn’t get sick. (These are bagels which you finish baking at home with expiration dates 6-8 weeks in the future. They are also packaged in two groups of two, which is always handy when there’s only two of you.)
So on the one hand I’m thinking “Okay, different batch, and we didn’t get sick from what we already ate… let’s keep it.” and on the other hand I’m thinking “Hmm. I’ve seen this happen before. Let’s keep the remaining bagels, but not eat them right away. Just in case they change their mind.” Which they did on the following day, as you might be able to read in my screenshot. Now it says that they are removing all sesame bagels from the store shelves as a precautionary measure. So into the trash our poor remaining bagels go. Thud. We never even got the chance to invite you over for breakfast…
Helaas. Or as Dutch kids like to say because it rhymes: Helaas, pindakaas. Which translates to “Unfortunately. Peanut butter.” Which isn’t as cool as it is in Dutch, I know.
It’s almost time for Halloween! Here is one of the two display stands at Hema:
I have mentioned before that Halloween isn’t that big in the Netherlands. It’s slowly gaining in popularity but trick or treating for candy isn’t a huge thing. Of course there is some trick or treating (I know some international schools do promote it) but it’s not as big with Dutch children as far as I’m aware. SoLow has a great collection of costumes and decorations if you’re interested. Xenos usually has a small collection as well.
As most of my readers are aware, it’s not going that great with Europe in terms of the corona virus. The same is true here in the Netherlands as we’ve been breaking records left and right. Number of cases, hospital intakes, ICU intakes, deaths… It definitely seems like the “second wave” has started. Today we registered 2,552 cases. Various experts (but not the government, yet) are saying a lockdown will be coming if the number of cases can’t be slowed. For instance the chairman of the Dutch Union of the Intensive Care Diederik Gommers said this during an interview with Radio 538 (article in Dutch). You can also see the weekly numbers at RIVM.nl in English, updated two days ago.
But, anyway. For something completely different – if you’re interested in war monuments, check out this new war monuments digital archive over at haagsgemeentearchief.nl. The website is in Dutch but there’s also photographs to look at. You can also read an accompanying article in Dutch at omroepwest.nl: Haagse oorlogsmonumenten op een rij gezet: ‘Maar denken dat er nog meer zijn’.
As I noted earlier this month, last Tuesday was Prinsejesdag, a day for Dutch royalty and politicians to ride in a carriage through the city centre and then announce the yearly budget. Thanks to corona the ride was cancelled, the events were scaled back and fans were told to stay home. But one top fan who shows up every year ignored the warning to stay home and came anyway:
Marco said he’s a Dutch inventor and a singer (check out his Wikipedia page in Dutch). I say he’s just crazy. But maybe the safe kind of crazy? He took a swimming tube and painted it gold, to signify keeping people a meter and a half away. He also recreated the golden carriage in miniature (check out the article for a better picture of that).
In other news:
I told Marco we needed to take this photo and caption it simply “2020”. You can see all the cool stuff off in the distance, but you’re stuck here not able to do any of it.
The statue itself is from the outdoor Beelden aan Zee exhibit (Statues at sea) on the pier. The statues belong to the nearby Beelden aan Zee museum.
But here is a cute tweet to counterbalance the photo above – a mischievous cat.
This cat resides at a police station in a nearby city, Rijswijk. The tweet reads: “As if @Winston_topkat is sometimes waiting. Briefly went to the printer and he’s lying stretched out on my chair.” Winston has his own Twitter feed as well (Winston_topkat).
Life in the Hague 