UPDATEThe Netherlands is again waiting for a hard lockdown in December. The OMT advises to lock almost everything quickly. Tonight at 7 p.m. Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge and OMT chairman Jaap van Dissel will give a press conference together.
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Niels Klaassen
Latest update:
12:37
The cabinet is still meeting this afternoon about the corona measures package, but everything indicates that the OMT emergency advice will be followed. This would mean that catering, culture, sports, amusement parks, schools and non-essential shops will also have to close during the day in the coming weeks. Supermarkets, drugstores and pharmacies will remain open then. The details will follow tonight.
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It is the first time since March 2020 that Van Dissel has rejoined a corona press conference, a sign that the epidemiological alert is phase one. If the cabinet adopts its advice, the Netherlands will be in a hard lockdown during the holidays, just like last year. Then almost everything was locked, there were only exceptions for supermarkets, medical contact professions, hotels (without catering), outdoor sports for children, banks and libraries (to pick up books) were allowed to remain open. At home, a maximum of two visitors could come daily, during Christmas this was increased to three.
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smashing golf
There is a worldwide alarm about the rapidly emerging omikron variant. In the Netherlands there were already more restrictions when the new mutant emerged, so the omikron wave seems to land here later. But the spread is spreading very quickly: in Amsterdam the share of omi crashes has increased tenfold in just over a week. Last Monday, 2.5 percent of the infections were an omikron variant, now that is more than a quarter.
With the hard lockdown, the OMT aims to flatten the fast new wave, so that not too many people become seriously ill and end up in hospital. At the same time, the booster injection round is accelerated, so that the antibodies against the new mutant are restored. British research shows that protection is still strong after a third (booster) injection. According to preliminary data, the third vaccination protects for 80 percent against serious illness and hospitalization, compared to 95 percent for delta.
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