The village of Bathmen near Deventer did not want to wait for new restrictive measures and went into voluntary lockdown at the beginning of this month. According to the mayor, this has worked: while the corona figures rose nationally, they saw fewer infections in Bathmen in recent weeks, and the cases that there were came from people who work outside the village. Other places are now looking with interest at the ‘Bathmen approach’.
In recent weeks, the residents of the Overijssel village have seen camera crews and photographers walk around ‘the village in lockdown’ with some regularity. “Funny, because there is nothing to see”, says Annebritt Meijerhof of cafeteria De Brink. The adjoining café of her in-laws closed at the end of September as a precaution, due to the then high number of corona infections in Bathmen. “But it is now much busier in our cafeteria.”
Meijerhof was actually quite happy in recent weeks with the clear rules in the village, which now also apply in the rest of the country. “It was more difficult to keep track of what is and what is not allowed in the period when everything was let go a bit.”
‘Quite drastic’
This spring, a care home was hit hard by corona in the village, which has nearly six thousand inhabitants. When the number of corona infections rose again at the end of September to about 43 per day, mayor Ron König decided to talk to associations and entrepreneurs in the village. A voluntary lockdown was jointly decided. The sports association stopped all activities, performances in the Braakhekke hall were canceled, mouth masks had to be put on in the supermarket and residents received a letter with the request to stay at home as much as possible and to make as few contacts as possible.
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