Dear readers,
Today I’m thinking it’s time to update you on some of the things I’ve written about before, particularly regarding politics and covid.
Forming a new government
Mark Rutte is still the lame-duck Prime Minister and recently survived a vote of no confidence. The negotiations for forming a new government coalition haven’t made much progress. An independent “informateur” interviewed members of the different parties to try to figure out which could be part of the coalition to add up to a majority in Parliament. He will issue his report today. There are so many issues that the coalition parties will have to agree on – how to revive the economy, how to repair inequalities in education, and immigration policy, to name just a few – that forming a coalition still could easily take months.
Vaccinations
Apparently the number of vaccinations that have been given so far was over-estimated last week. The total number so far is a bit over 5 million (out of a population of 17 million), and this week’s total should be 650,000. However, apparently the official totals are based on what is delivered to medical practitioners, not on what is in fact given, so the numbers are actually lower.
Demand has gone down a bit since the AstraZeneca scare. Only people 60 and over are allowed AZ shots, even though some of us who are younger would be happy to take that small risk. Only a very low number of Johnson & Johnson vaccines are available, so the vast majority of vaccinations will come as two doses.
This week, people born in 1961 started their turn for their first shot. They’ll get an appointment letter soon, if they haven’t already. But a technical error led to 40,000 people born in 1963 mistakenly receiving an invitation to phone and make an appointment. Being sticklers for the rules, officials denied the appointments and told them to wait. I’m next in line – born in 1962 – and desperate to get my vaccinations, yet I would have been fine with letting them get theirs. Bureaucracy is so inflexible in this country!
Pandemic restrictions
Meanwhile the pandemic restrictions have been eased a bit, as of April 28. The problem, though, is that this easing was based on projections saying that we were at the peak of hospitalizations and that they would go down starting about April 28. The question is: will this actually happen?
The OMT (Outbreak Management Team) was not happy about reducing restrictions. In their view, the number of hospitalizations will go down gradually in May, so easing restrictions should wait till then. The cabinet decided to ignore their advice.
The choice of April 28 was intentional, I think, because April 27 is Koningsdag: King’s Day, the king’s birthday and a public holiday. Normally this is celebrated with street markets, concerts, and events of all sorts. It’s a fun day of orange-clad craziness. So the idea was to celebrate the holiday virtually – the king and his family took part from a TV studio in Eindhoven – and start opening up the next day.
What actually happened, though, was that it was a beautiful day and everyone had the day off, so they headed to the parks and plazas to celebrate, many not bothering with masks. The police tried to stop people from entering and in some places moved in and cleared parks and street parties. That led to violence and arrests or fines. Will these crowds lead to another infection peak in a couple of weeks? It wouldn’t surprise me.
The new regulations that came into effect are fairly minimal:
Instead of a limit of one visitor at home per day, we can now have two per day.
Stores can open, with very limited numbers of shoppers. This was already the rule. Now, though, people don’t have to reserve via internet ahead of time. Instead, they can just go, which means waiting in line outside the store.
University and college students will have one day of in-person lessons per week.
An end to the nightly curfew which was 10pm to 4:30am.
Most importantly, the cafés and restaurants can open again – previously they only did take-out – and serve customers at their outdoor tables, properly spaced or separated by plastic partitions, but only from noon to 6pm.
When, on the day after King’s Day, April 28, it turned out to be another beautiful spring day, the cafés were thronged with customers. Café owners were, of course, thrilled, but annoyed that they had to close up at 6.
And then yesterday, April 29, the weather went downhill: grey, rainy, chilly. The cafés, which had hired people to serve tables, spent more than they made and are now lobbying to be able to open up indoors as well.
A museum visit
A series of trials were held last week with museum visits - one museum per province - and I took the opportunity to spend a few hours at the Drenthe Museum in Assen. The trial involved getting a rapid test shortly before my visit. The whole thing wasn’t set up very efficiently. I had to make the appointment for the museum visit, which involved downloading an app first where my ticket would appear. Once I did that, I could make the appointment for the fast test, which required downloading a different app where I would receive my result.
The location for the fast test was clear across town, and the museum is in a town about a half-hour south of here. It just seemed to me that the whole thing isn’t a very practical way to reopen museums.
But never mind, it was good to get out, even if it was just for a few hours. I did my best to pretend I was traveling and enjoyed the art and history I saw in the museum.
Vaccination passport
The EU is planning to issue a vaccination passport system in time for the summer vacation so that Europeans can travel within Europe. The system will register whether a person a) is fully or partially vaccinated, b) has recently recovered from covid, or c) has recently had a negative covid test.
The problem is that the member states are having trouble reaching agreement on things like whether different countries can set different standards. Can individual countries decide they only want to admit people who are fully vaccinated? Or do they all have to agree on the same rules at their borders? And what about unapproved vaccines like Sputnik, which are being used in some countries in Eastern Europe? Do these vaccinations count the same as, say, Pfizer or Moderna? Even with this single passport system, Europe could still end up with a fragmented system with each country setting its own rules. They’re busy trying to reach some agreement about how it’ll be used, hopefully before summer!
Isn’t bureaucracy fun?
I wish you a fully-vaccinated week, free of bureaucratic roadblocks of any kind!
Met vriendelijke groeten (with friendly greetings),
Rachel
P.S. I write about independent travel at Rachel’s Ruminations. Please join me there!