The Dutch government has decided to prolong the evening lockdown until January 14; in addition, primary schools and out-of-school care facilities (BSO) will be closed earlier than anticipated, on December 20, and will re-open on January 10.
The 4 visitors per day limit won’t be lifted before the holidays, and all other measures remain in place for now, including advice to stay home as much as possible and self-test often, mandatory face-masks inside shops and public transportation, and 1.5 metre distancing at all times.
In Tuesday night’s press conference, Prime Minister Rutte and Health Minister de Jonge shared that while Covid’s infection peak caused by the Delta variant seems behind us, the Omicron variant represents still too much of a wild card to relax the measures imposed at the end of November.
The number of new infections and Covid-related hospitalizations remained high in the past few weeks, most recently averaging at respectively 16.640 and 283, according to the RIVM. The government is scaling up its vaccination campaign and declared that everyone over 18 will be invited to get their booster shot by the second half of January.
