The Netherlands is slightly back in step with its neighboring countries. In Belgium, Germany, France and England the shopping streets were full, soon it will be allowed again in the Netherlands, albeit only during the day. Sports will soon be possible again, Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health, D66) announced on Friday, but the catering and cultural sector will remain closed.
In recent weeks, the Netherlands looked with jealousy at the crowded shopping streets and catering in other European countries. Rutte assumed in December that other countries would follow the Netherlands when he announced a lockdown. “We are not alone, all of Europe has to deal with this,” he said at the end of December. But other countries did not follow. Here and there some rules were tightened – Denmark closed schools, in Belgium concert halls and cinemas closed and Germany and France closed discotheques – but sectors were not closed en masse, as the Netherlands did.
Last week, pressure was increased on the new cabinet to significantly relax the lockdown: shops and the catering industry threatened to open on Saturday anyway, fifteen mayors in South Limburg allowed their catering and cultural institutions to be open on Saturday, other mayors also. pointed out the ‘devastating effect’ on the economy and society, Overijssel sent a ‘fire letter’ to the minister.
New strategy
Where in the Netherlands ‘living with the virus’ is still an empty phrase, other European countries are switching to a new strategy that has to be sustainable for longer. In Denmark, society is kept open as much as possible, Danish political scientist Michael Bang Petersen, who is also part of the Danish government’s corona advisory group, said last week. NRC. Sometimes action is taken early to prevent worse – Denmark closed primary schools earlier than the Netherlands in December. But otherwise the company remained largely open. Sometimes you have to accept more infections, says Petersen, and other interests outweigh. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez even thinks it is time to treat the coronavirus as the flu. The newspaper El Pais already spoke of the gripalización (“influenza”) from Covid.
Last autumn, that seemed to be the path that the Netherlands also took. In September, then Minister of Justice Ferd Grapperhaus (CDA) sang goodbye to the mask on TV (“Say mouth mask, where are you going?”) and colleague Hugo de Jonge (Public Health, CDA) called it “a big step forward” that the one and a half meters could be abolished. A month and a half later, all the rules might even be abolished – but instead the mask and the one and a half meters came back due to an increasing number of hospital admissions.
Many neighboring countries had their affairs in order around that time. In Germany, France and Belgium the first booster shots were already placed in September, in the Netherlands two months later. And where test streets were closed in the Netherlands from the summer, testing was made much more accessible in many places in Europe: Paris is full of tents where you can take a quick test, in Italy you can take a test at every pharmacy and in train stations of larger cities. let it be done, in Germany every major shopping street has a test location.
Vaccination obligation
Many countries that have decided against a new lockdown are opting for a stricter policy for unvaccinated people, for example via the corona pass. In Germany, ‘2G-plus’ applies in the catering industry, for example, where cured and vaccinated people must also be tested or boosted. French President Macron announced that he wants to “foul” unvaccinated people by “limiting them as much as possible access to social life activities”. In Italy, the corona pass is mandatory in the workplace.
Austria deemed a lockdown necessary in mid-November, but immediately announced a vaccination obligation that must apply from February. In the meantime, unvaccinated people are only allowed to go out for work, to do groceries or to exercise.
A flu is corona so actually nowhere. With a combination of basic measures, rapid boosting and a strict and broad deployment of the corona pass, many European countries kept their societies more open while the Omikron variant advanced than in the winter of last year. Price was often an increase in hospital admissions, which sometimes approaches the peak of December in the Netherlands – before the lockdown was introduced.
But the will to keep society open is great, although that sometimes leads to resistance. Take France, where Macron wants to keep schools open at all costs. Teachers fear for their own health now that the number of infections among their students has reached a record high and the number of hospital admissions is also rising sharply, while, according to the teachers, there are insufficient precautions, such as good mouth masks or ventilation. There was a major teachers’ strike on Thursday. But Macron is sticking to his strategy: last week a French government spokesman emphasized that the aim is for life to return to “as normal as possible”, “despite the virus”.
The new Dutch corona minister Ernst Kuipers also seemed to want to go in that direction last week: he wants to give greater weight to social and economic factors, and is looking for measures that are not too drastic and can be maintained for longer. He mentioned a broader use of the mouth cap as an example. Kuipers is still looking for other, less drastic measures.
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