Posts Tagged With: Coronavirus

A curfew has been announced from 20:30 to 04:30, starting either Saturday or Sunday depending on a final vote by the Dutch parliament. For the moment the curfew will last until 9 February. Some of the exceptions to the curfew include essential workers (who have a signed declaration from their employer), persons seeking medical assistance for a person or an animal, caretakers and meal delivery workers with a declaration from their employer. You can also let your dog out, but you need to do it alone and the dog must be leashed.

Coronavirus in the Netherlands: What you need to know (January 20) from dutchnews.nl

Oh, and you see how I said the curfew doesn’t apply to meal delivery workers? Marktplaats bans sales of delivery worker apparel ahead of curfew from nltimes.nl. Markplaats is like a Dutch eBay. Apparently people were already selling (and buying) clothes to make it look like they had a legitimate reason to be outside during the curfew.

Other measures include:

• all flights to the United Kingdom, South Africa and all South American countries will be banned until required quarantine procedures can be put into place, which might take up to four weeks
• all travelers by boat and plane must have taken a fast test within four hours of their flight departing, in addition to the previously required PCR test within 72 hours
• all travelers by boat and plane are required to quarantine for 10 days, but they can take a test after 5 days
• only one house guest over the age of 13 is allowed per 24 hours. Previously 2 guests were allowed.
• only 50 guests are allowed by a funeral (instead of the previous 100 guests)

The goal of the extra measures is to prepare for the scenario where the “British” variant is more dominant in the Netherlands, to prevent the situation that is currently happening in the United Kingdom. Another goal is to force the number of cases down even faster to allow schools to hopefully re-open on 8 February.

In other news:

• dinner today was sauerkraut (English Wikipedia), made by Marco’s mom. Very tasty – thank you!
• Marco and I forgot to take photos of the sauerkraut because we were busy watching the US inauguration of Joe Biden on CNN International. Fun fact as told by Marco: here in the Netherlands, CNN became widespread in the Netherlands during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. After the war ended the channel was still offered by most Dutch television providers, through today.

Random observation #1: I had a dream this morning. The only thing I can remember is that I was speaking Dutch. I remember this because I woke up and was wondering why I was speaking Dutch so slowly in the dream. The sentences I said certainly did not seem that difficult to me. But I thought about it and realized I don’t dream that often in Dutch. My mind was likely trying to construct the sentences as fast as it could but having a bit of trouble doing so, which likely woke me up.

Perhaps I should give the credit to Marco, who tries to keep me speaking Dutch during the day even when I’m working. (Which helps since we don’t get outside that much outside of grocery shopping, so there are a lot less spontaneous conversations with strangers.)

Random observation #2: If you are standing a supermarket and trying to lick your fingers to futilely open a plastic bag to put some jalapeños in, but you’re wearing a face mask, what can you do? I managed to get enough friction to open it after about half a minute, but it was a weird sensation to bring my fingers to my mouth and then realized I could not lick them because I was wearing a face mask.

I am sure this one was noticed by others months and months ago, but generally I have a re-usable bag on hand so I don’t need to grab a plastic bag.

Elementary schools will remain closed in the Netherlands until at least 8 February from nltimes.nl. Previously there was hope that elementary schools could re-open from 25 January, however there is still uncertainty around the British variant of the coronavirus, so the Outbreak Management Team (OMT) recommended against re-opening them early and the Dutch government agreed.

Museumplein schoongeveegd door politie om verboden demonstratie from nos.nl (Amsterdam’s Museumplein cleared out by police, ending an illegal demonstration). The city had said the protestors would not be allowed to protest at the Museumplein. An alternative location with a maximum of 500 protestors allowed was given, however 1,500-2,000 protestors still showed up at the original location today. The name of the protest was “Don’t vote for Rutte’s cabinet!” (elections will be held in mid-March).

Pretty much! Books rule (both physical and digital).

The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte announced that our lockdown would be extended for three weeks (nltimes.nl, in English), moving the end date from 19 January to 9 February. Lockdown in the Netherlands means that all non-essential stores are closed, restaurants and cafés are closed, ‘through traffic’ places like libraries, museums, and amusement parks are closed.

Schools have switched to online education as well, although some students are allowed at school if they are deemed “vulnerable” or need to prepare for exams. Secondary education schools (students 12 and older) who are in the classroom are now required to adhere to the 1.5 meters distance rule in all situations. Previously secondary education students did not have to keep distance with each other, only their teacher.

The government considered implementing a curfew, however they have decided to consult with the Outbreak Management Team first before taking that step. It could still happen, but I think the government is trying to gauge public reaction before going there, because it could backfire.

The news is not all bad, though. Here is a look at the number of corona cases (the red line is the 7 day average):

We had about 5,000 cases today, 500 less than yesterday. But, the decline is too slow and the hospital and ICU intakes are not showing that much of a decline. The threat of the British variant of the coronavirus also looms. During the press conference the Minister of Health said there were about 100 recorded cases of that variant, with about half of them in the township of Lansingerland, not that far from The Hague. The township is currently working on testing all of its residents over two years of age–the first area in the Netherlands to do so (article in Dutch at nos.nl).

And really, there was a time back in early October when we were panicking because we hit 5,000 cases, so why should we accept 5,000 cases as a good thing now? Let’s just hope the downward trend continues.