The cabinet is making a concession to schools: on the last Monday before the original Christmas holidays, i.e. next Monday, schools can still choose to keep their doors open. The ‘leniency day’ can be used if parents need more time to arrange childcare for their children.
Until January 14th
The evening lockdown that applies now will remain in effect until January 14. Prime Minister Rutte and outgoing minister De Jonge will announce the details tonight. The cabinet has also decided to allocate 85 million euros for extra support for the ailing cultural sector.
Due to the measure, school-age children have less contact with each other a week before Christmas and the risk of infection would be smaller. Initially, the Christmas break was to start on December 24. The fear was that primary school children take the virus from school to family and, for example, grandparents. Staying in the ‘own family bubble’ a week earlier is safer, the experts say.
–
–
Advised by OMT
The outgoing cabinet is concerned about the more contagious Omikron variant of the coronavirus. “We still know little about this variant, but what we do know about it is not very reassuring,” said outgoing corona minister Hugo de Jonge yesterday.
Bringing forward the Christmas holidays has been advised several times before by the Outbreak Management Team (OMT). At the time, the cabinet did not want to do it, because it only wants to close the schools earlier if there really is no other option.
–
–
Last week, outgoing minister Arie Slob (Education) wrote that it was ‘the government’s commitment’ to keep schools open as planned around the Christmas holidays. Many children already have educational disadvantages due to previous school closures.
But yesterday, De Jonge hinted that the cabinet is seriously considering an earlier Christmas holiday. He said the cabinet should “seriously weigh” the OMT’s recommendation. De Jonge said he understands that many schools run into problems with the planning, ‘but we have been saying for a few weeks that we are thinking about this’.
Resistance education union
The General Education Association (AOb) opposed the obligation to offer hybrid education prior to the decision today. The union says it is not possible to organize distance learning in such a short time.
–
–
Coronapersconferentie
Tonight at 7 p.m. there will be a press conference. It can be followed live via RTL Z, RTL Nieuws and this site.
–
–
:format(jpg):watermark(cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/EF665FJJCNGHFFHRRMWR57UKMI.png,0,30,0)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/G34N3IUITNCSVFEQTYSTZC4QBI.jpg "Critical software vulnerability: a wave of hacking threatens Amazon, Tesla and Twitter")
