Hard lockdown in the Netherlands: everything will be closed from Sunday until January 14th

From Sunday, almost everything has to close in the Netherlands. “The same recipe as exactly a year ago,” a person involved reported to De Telegraaf. For many northern neighbors it means a meager Christmas, without visiting restaurants, cafes, museums and also without shopping or a hairdresser’s visit. Secondary schools and higher education also close a week earlier. There is also the urgent advice to receive only four visitors a day at home, aged over 13 years.

There is an exception for essential items and services. For example, supermarkets, bakers, drugstores, pharmacies, banks and mortgage lenders may continue to operate in the coming weeks. Pick-up is also possible in restaurants. The measures would certainly last until January 14.

Brace yourself

On Friday, Rutte’s cabinet was advised to take stricter measures to slow down the emerging omikron variant. And that even though the infection rates in the country are currently still declining. After all, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) expects that omikron will catch up with the delta shortly after the turn of the year and will be most common in the Netherlands. That would mean that the nursing wards and intensive care units would have to brace themselves for a new wave of corona patients, a wave that may be larger than before. New restrictions were therefore advised to dampen a new wave of infections as much as possible.

In addition to Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Health Minister Hugo De Jonge, Jaap van Dissel, head of infectious disease control at RIVM and chairman of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), will also be present at the press conference on Saturday evening.

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