According to Prime Minister Rutte, the deeply felt sense of urgency has made the difference in recent times in reducing the corona virus outbreak. “That deep sense of urgency must be restored”, Prime Minister Rutte just said during the press conference about the increase in the number of corona infections.
What does not help with that sense of urgency is the picture that hospitals are now quieter than in March and April. Because currently mainly young people contract the virus, corona patients are less ill than then.
But, Rutte warns, if the number of infections continues to increase at this rate, it is ‘inevitable’ that this will also affect the hospitals. “We cannot and must not do that to healthcare and the people who work in healthcare.”
Better visibility
Rutte also said that more has become clear about the fight against the virus. “We’d better be on the iceberg in the water. That offers an opportunity to make adjustments. We should not miss that opportunity. The facts are downright worrying.”
Rutte: ‘Sense of necessity must return’
Minister De Jonge said at the press conference that ‘if you look at the growing number of corona infections in the Netherlands, the second wave has started. “If we look at the situation in hospitals, it is not that far yet”, says de Jonge. “It is up to us together to prevent this from happening.” Because much more information is now available about the virus, ‘we can break the second wave’.
Do not test children
Children up to and including 12 years with mild complaints no longer need to be tested for the corona virus. The cabinet has decided this after advice from the OMT. De Jonge said that children with a snot nose, ticklish cough or sore throat can go to school as usual. “The risk of spreading is very low.”
It also saves crowds if they are no longer tested. Parents who still want to have their children tested can do so, De Jonge said.
De Jonge: ‘Do not test children up to and including 12 with mild complaints’
Stricter measures
De Jonge announced stricter corona measures. These will apply to six regions where the virus has recently flared up and will take effect on Sunday at 6 p.m. The six regions where most infections are currently detected are Amsterdam-Amstelland, Rotterdam-Rijnmond, Haaglanden, Utrecht, Kennemerland and Hollands-Midden.
Catering establishments in those six regions are no longer allowed to allow new guests in from midnight on Sunday evening. They must be completely closed by 1 a.m.
Groups may consist of a maximum of fifty people. A few exceptions are made to this maximum group size. This includes funerals, for example. Some regions also come up with small additional measures themselves.
Information campaign
Special information campaigns are also being launched aimed at students and migrant youth, the groups in which a large increase in infections can be seen. There will be differences between the security regions, for example, the campaign in Rotterdam will focus more on migrant youth than the information in Kennemerland.
There will be a map of the Netherlands indicating the status of each security region. A distinction is made between ‘vigilant’, ‘worrisome’ and ‘serious’, to indicate which phase the virus is in per region.
Signal value exceeded
The number of infections has been increasing rapidly in recent days. 1977 new coronavirus infections were diagnosed today. Yesterday, 1,756 people tested positive were reported.
The number of positively tested people per 100,000 inhabitants thus creeps further into the red. That number has a signal value of 7, but that number has been exceeded almost every day this week. Today that number is 11.4.
Intensive care
There are currently 58 people with the coronavirus in intensive care. That is 9 more than yesterday. Another 230 people have been hospitalized, but are not on the IC. That is 18 more than yesterday.
In total, 288 people are in hospital because of the consequences of a corona infection.
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