News

Let’s stick with some random news today.

I saw an interesting article on NOS.nl in Dutch: Gratis af te halen: veilige finishstraat voor wielerkoersen or “Free to pick up: Safe finish barriers for cycling courses”. I found a similar article in English from cyclingtips.com. A Belgian company made safety barriers for the last 400 meters of cycling competitions and are offering them for free. (In exchange the pieces are branded with their name so that they get exposure.)

The most interesting things about the barrier are:

• they are sloped 70 degrees from the ground back to the spectator, making it much more difficult to take a selfie or hang over the edge.
• the edges are outfitted with black arrows, giving the cyclists a small optical illusion that the course is narrowing and that they should steer inwards, staying away from the edges (…hopefully that works as the company hopes)
• they can be filled with water to make them heavier in windy environments

The Netherlands has also temporarily stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine for two weeks while the European Medical Agency reviews the vaccine’s safety: Netherlands suspends use of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine amid blood clot investigation from nltimes.nl. 200,000 appointments in the next few weeks have been cancelled. Hopefully they will be rescheduled once use of the vaccine is cleared.

Haagse ‘Verkiezingskrant’ met stemlocaties en kandidaten niet overal bezorgd from omroepwest.nl (The Hague’s ‘Election Newspaper’ with polling places and a candidate list not delivered everywhere). This year The Hague’s government decided to include the information in a special newspaper rather than with the voting pass you receive in the mail. However some neighborhoods didn’t get one. Marco and I didn’t. Luckily the information is also available online for those who are digitally savvy, so it’s more a pain for those who are not.

And one final, very random article: Wurst case: Burglar caught over bite from German’s sausage. Including another worst/wurst pun…

There was another press conference tonight, as usually happens one week before rules are set to expire. Not much is changing, however.

• The curfew (21:00 to 04:30) will stay in place until 30 March
  • There is an exception for 15-17 March if you are outside due to the elections (you just voted, you are an election worker, etc.)
• From 16 March: up to four adults can exercise together outside, if you keep 1.5 meters distance from each other.
• From 16 March: swimming lessons for children will restart (very important for a country with so much water)
• From next week: stores larger than 50 square meters can allow one customer per 25 square meters, provided they made an appointment at least 4 hours in advance. The maximum number of customers at one time is 50.
• Nursing home residents can have up to two visitors per day, with differing visitors allowed during the week, provided all residents and staff are completely vaccinated. Previously they could only have one visitor per day, and it was the same visitor per week.
• The “negative advice” on traveling out of the country is extended to 15 April. At the press conference on 23 March they will announce the decision for travel during the May and summer vacations.
• If the number of cases, the R number and the number of hospital intakes don’t rise, the government will look into opening restaurants terraces (outside dining) from 31 March. If, if, if. In that scenario higher education students would also be able to go to school once a week.
• In the next few months the government is looking into the possibility of allowing quick tests to be sold for use in businesses and education. They could also be sold at drug stores for home use.

So, there are ome changes, but it is mainly looking towards the next month or two to see what is possible once more of the population is vaccinated. Check out the vaccination situation at the official Dutch corona dashboard (in English).

See also: Current lockdown will be gone by July; Terraces could reopen March 31 from nltimes.nl.

There was another press conference this evening to discuss the coronavirus measures. The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said that we are now at a phase where we are able to take more risks, although that statement should be taken with a grain of salt. The number of infections in Netherlands isn’t getting better, but people are starting to get more and more restless. Especially as the weather gets better. Here are some updates regarding the corona measures:

• Middle schools will open for at least one day per week (with more days allowed, at the school’s discretion), from 2 March
• “Contact professions” (hair dressers, beauticians, massagers, etc.) will re-open from 3 March
• Along with the already present “click and collect” option at stores, shops will be able to offer shopping by appointment from 3 March. There can be a maximum of two customers per floor, with a minimum time slot of 10 minutes, for a total of 12 customers per hour per floor. Of course, that is less than ideal for some of the larger stores. Rutte did say they were going to enter into conversations with larger stores about additional financial support, but he did not go into details.
• Young adults up to the age of 27 will be allowed to participate in team sports (previously this was capped at 18 years old), although there was no mention of gyms re-opening yet.

There will be another press conference on Monday, March 8 to discuss the curfew and other coronavirus measures. The curfew needs to be discussed because the following week general elections will be held, and voting locations stay open until 21:00. That clashes with the start of the nightly curfew.

So: risk versus reward. It is quite possible the number of infections will start going back up again, and in that case some of these measures would need to be repealed. So as usual it is sort of “wait and see” over here.

Curfew extended, other restrictions relaxed; “Your behavior matters” from nltimes.nl

In more positive news, the weather is still great. Marco and I took a walk earlier to soak in some sun!

I briefly paid a visit to the grocery store this morning, enjoying the moments of sun on my face. How nice it is to feel the sun again! We also opened the bedroom window to get a bit of fresh air in the apartment.

We are not there yet, but: Events to take place again with rapid testing and a CoronaCheck app from nltimes.nl. The government wants to start experimenting with small-scale events to see how it goes. Tomorrow there will be a football game with 1,500 fans separated into six “bubbles” with different rules (article from rtlnieuws.nl in Dutch). For example, bubble #1 has the following rules: wear a face mask unless sitting, restaurants and cafés are available at all times, seat placement is determined in advance but you can sit next to other participants, etc.

One of the key requirements for starting events again in the summer is that testing must be scaled up to at least 400k a day, with a test certificate available for checking via a CoronaCheck app. Of course, keep in mind the Netherlands is also holding general elections next month so it looks good if they announce initiatives like this.

In other, random news: if you want to see map of all the trees in The Hague, check out the “Haagse Bomen app” at ddh.maps.arcgis.com. Larger green circles denote older trees, whereas purple and orange circles denote “monumental” trees, with orange ones owned by the city and purple ones owned by a private citizen. Most of the monumental trees are in the city centre.

Above is a 2013 photo of the tree next to Grote Kerk (Big Church) in The Hague. According to the app website it is 120 years old!

It has been a bit of a confusing day, especially due to speaking Dutch as a second language. A few times I have had to stop and ask Marco what this or that meant, as my knowledge of judicial terms (even everyday judicial terms) isn’t that great.

The Dutch courts unexpectedly struck down the Dutch curfew law which said that everyone must be inside between 21:00 and 04:30, unless you have a valid reason. I say unexpectedly because I didn’t even know there was a court case going on. The Dutch anti-lockdown group Viruswaarheid (Loosely translated: Virus Truth) went to the courts to strike down the curfew. The curfew had been in place since 23 January and was extended on 8 February until the early morning of 3 March. And then suddenly it was gone – or so we thought. I can’t say that I’ve been pretty disrupted by it, beyond Roger coming over earlier in the weekend. (Note: Roger is pretty much our only contact for some months, with a few rare exceptions.) Oh, and also that Marco has to get up early to bring the garbage down. The Hague decided that you can only put your garbage out between 04:30 and 07:45, rather than late in the evening the night before. Ick.

Curfew must be scrapped immediately, court rules from nltimes.nl. The court didn’t say that the curfew itself was wrong, rather that the government did not follow proper procedure and bring it before the Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives) and the Eerste Kamer (Senate) before bringing it into law. The government instead used an “acute emergency” ruling to bring it to pass. The court disagreed that it was indeed an acute emergency.

Viruswaarheid says there will be a party in the streets tonight; the leader invites everyone to go outside and celebrate after 21:00 (article in Dutch, from nos.nl). That does not sound like a good plan…

The Dutch government said wait a minute – we want to appeal that, and we want to keep the curfew active while we’re appealing. Government appeals against curfew ruling, also from nltimes.nl.

The government appeals, and the sitting is scheduled for 16:00. During the hearing, the leader of Viruswaarheid accuses the courts of not being impartial, and he says he wants a different court to hear the case. A special court will look at his request, saying they need until 18:30 to decide, give or take. It’s 19:00 now… At 19:08 the court said that they are dismissing his request for a new court.

So like I said: a confusing day. At the moment, the curfew has been struck down, until the court says otherwise. For now. We will see.

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