Limburg turns red, other provinces still orange for the time being | Inland

In recent weeks, the Netherlands has always been able to take a step back on the map of the European health service ECDC. In September the whole country was red, last week the whole country was orange.

The number of positive tests started to rise more than a week ago, and has been accelerating in recent days. The expected increase in the autumn seems to have started, says the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). If that increase continues, more provinces will switch from orange to red next week. This chance is greatest in Utrecht, South Holland, Overijssel and Gelderland. Utrecht remained just below the border between orange and red this week. If three more residents in the province had tested positive, Utrecht would also have gone red on Thursday. In Overijssel, the number of positive tests increased by almost 38 percent since last week’s card and in Gelderland by about 35 percent.

The ECDC, the European counterpart of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, publishes the map every Thursday. The service looks at the number and percentage of positive tests in the two previous calendar weeks. The card has four colors. From low to high, these are green, orange, red and dark red. Countries can decide on the basis of the map to tighten the rules for travelers from other countries. When the Netherlands turned dark red in July, this prompted countries such as Germany and France to introduce stricter rules for Dutch people who wanted to cross the border.

In other countries the picture remains the same: in Spain, France and Italy the situation is improving and in Central Europe the number of positive tests is increasing. For example, all of Romania is now dark red, the highest possible level. Slovenia remains at that level and large parts of Slovakia are now also dark red. More than half of Hungary is red, the Czech Republic goes from mostly green to completely orange. Germany remains almost completely red. Flanders remains orange and Wallonia remains red. Finland and Luxembourg go from all orange to all red in one week.

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