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Coronavirus/CoVid-19/Pandemic/Health

Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 16 April 2020

Here is another update about The Coronavirus in The Netherlands.

I’m so sorry for this very late update! My computer was too slow and I couldn’t see what I wrote. Also, my daughters needed my laptop for school.

Vitens is one of the water companies who gives water to the citizens of The Netherlands. In this period of the Coronavirus, people use way more water this crisis. Vitens says that we have to be economical with water. Vitens gave a billion litres of water more than last year in the same period.

7 procent meer drinkwater gebruikt doordat we thuis zijn

Waterbedrijf Vitens roept klanten op om zo zuinig mogelijk te zijn met water. Volgens het bedrijf is er een forse…

nos.nl

About 100.000 companies and 17.000 consumers in The Netherlands do have, since the beginning of this crisis, bank repayment requested, have been able to take out loans or they have been given more credit. Entrepreneurs do criticize the way in which banks issue additional loans through the BMKB scheme. Banks would underestimate those credit applications with that government guarantee.

Borgstelling MKB-kredieten (BMKB) | RVO.nl | Rijksdienst

Het garantiebudget in 2020 voor de BMKB is € 640 miljoen voor banken en € 25 miljoen voor niet-bancaire financiers. De…

www.rvo.nl

The RIVM director — Van Dissel — thinks that we also have to look at the exit strategy per region. In the North-Netherlands the infections are very low. Van Dissel: “A regional approach is certainly being considered, but I am not going to anticipate it.” The advantage is of course that companies can start up faster and people can do more again. But it can also trigger unwanted flows of people. Van Dissel continues: “When the bars closed in Belgium, many Belgians came to the Netherlands.” Furthermore, communication becomes very important because different measures in different parts of the country can cause confusion. The Outbreak Management Team (OMT), that advise the House of Representatives, got the task to think about the exit strategy, tels Van Dissel. “We can peel off the various measures and estimate the effects with our models.”, he continues. In this exit strategy, it is important to know who are the Coronapatients and with whom they had contact. And everyone who had a Cotonainfection must be tracked down. Van Dissel says that we only can go into the direction of an exit only if we know the consequences of the distance rules. This leads to not another peek into this Coronavirus pandemic. With this exit strategy, mouth masks could play a big role in, for example, contact jobs. You could give them to the health sector as they could restart. For now, there is still a great scarcity and these masks cannot be used any less than for staff who treat people with Coronavirus. “I don’t mean this funny, but in many Asian countries people have been wearing mouth masks for a long time and that hasn’t stopped the corona outbreak there either.” Coronavirus is very hard. Despite the rules, we have a lot of infection in The Netherlands. “Apparently, this virus is able to pass from one person to another relatively easily.”, says Van Dissel. According to him the shortage of the protecting gear doesn’t lead to spreading the virus much faster. But he also says that people not working in the health care are not allowed to wear the mouth protection because this protection doesn’t protect that much and there are not much of these protection gear for not health workers. Van Dissel says that other countries choose for mouth masks, is because they have the possibilities and The Netherlands doesn’t have these possibilities. “You have to look at the fine print there, it concerns situations where people cannot maintain the 1,5-meter distance, such as in certain shops.”, Van Dissel says.

The entry ban is expanded until the 15th of May 2020. This means nobody can travel into and going outside our country.

Ronnie van Diemen, Inspector General at the Health Care Inspectorate, says in the House of Representatives that the fact that people are less likely to go to the doctor due to the corona outbreak will create a “reservoir of care”. People who need other care, don’t dare to call the (family) doctor to help themselves. They think that these doctors are busy with the Coronapatients. It is still a long road when every health care is normal as before, but also Van Diemen says that we have to call our family doctor when we need it. The General at the Health Care Inspectorate is flexible with the administration of health care as there is another priority at the moment. Guidelines are also being amended because working methods in hospitals have changed.

Nienke Nieuwenhuizen of Verenso, the professional association of specialists in geriatric medicine, says in the House of Representatives that the situation in nursing homes is very serious. Residents who are demented, for example, cannot indicate that they are getting sick. “And that is difficult because you have to be quick with this disease.” It is also difficult to maintain the distance rules and hygiene measures with the residents of nursing homes.

The number of deceased patients has increased fivefold in two weeks. On April 14, there were 629. Nieuwenhuizen: “These are unprecedented numbers. Anyone who still says that it is a flu is sighted blind.”

She fears that many more people will die because the disease course in the elderly is often serious. “Someone is sick, you think it is going in the right direction and the next day someone has completely collapsed again.” Nieuwenhuizen says that nursing home care also requires a ‘flatten the curve’, just like the ICs.

The Outbreak Management Team (OMT) advises the House of Representatives that the test policy must be expended and this hasn’t done everywhere yet. Now there is 5000 test per day, but it must be increased to 14.000 per day for the next six months.

Education Council says when schools stay closed after the May holidays than the school year will start early. The chance is that the Summer holiday will shorter. This is all because it must be looked at what the learning arrears will be. That is what Minister Slob of Education advises.

Onderwijsraad: begin schooljaar eerder als scholen na meivakantie dichtblijven

De Onderwijsraad maakt zich vooral zorgen over kinderen voor wie het thuis niet veilig is of die geen begeleiding of…

nos.nl

The Dutch Rabobank analysed what the effect is from The Coronavirus crisis. All sectors have been affected, but the most that have been affected is floriculture. The sales decline in the floriculture is 70 per cent from this quarter: April-June and 40 per cent in the third quarter: July-September, and the last year, in the same period. A turnover claim scheme of 600 million euros will be introduced for affected companies, it became known yesterday.

The Netherlands is taking care of 50 million euros for research to getting a vaccine against the Coronavirus. That says Minister Hugo de Jonge for Public Health in a letter to The House of Representatives. The money will go to CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. This Norwegian foundation collects donations from around the world to do research into infectious disease vaccines. Other European countries will also contribute money through CEPI. More than 632 million euros has already been raised. The foundation wants more than 800 million by the end of 2020. It is likely to be a comparable amount for 2021. “The Netherlands will also invest in the next research phase,” writes De Jonge.

Pride Amsterdam has been cancelled. That is shat the organisation said. The festival should take place from the 25th of July until the 2nd of August. According to the Foundation Amsterdam Gay Pride, it is not responsible and also not achievable to organise a Pride-festival. “We run into too many uncertainties and limitations,” said outgoing chairman Frits Huffnagel. “Organizing a Pride is not feasible in a half meter society. Full street and square parties and hundreds of thousands of people on the quay and boats along the route, that is simply not possible at this time.” Participants who have secured a place in the 25th boat parade remain assured of participation. They will not sail through the canals on August 1 this year but on August 7 next year.

Always check the (latest) facts with your country.

The numbers and stories are from yesterday or earlier this day. I haven’t seen new numbers so far, when there will be new numbers, rules and interesting situations here in The Netherlands, I will inform you.

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Agnes Laurens is a writer. She writes for the local newspaper. Agnes lives in Bunnik, The Netherlands, with her husband and three daughters. Writing is — aside from playing the violin — one of her passions since childhood. She is on Twitter and Instagram.

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