Coronavirus/CoVid-19/Pandemic/Health

Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 19 April 2020

Here is the new update. #stayhome and #staysafe.

Mouthsmasks-pop-up-store is going very well! The Dutch newspaper Parool spoke to the owner of this pop-up-store which was founded last weekend in The Jordaan in Amsterdam. According to the owner — Hank Sweep — he is doing good business: “People even come from outside Amsterdam,” he told the newspaper. There was also a lot of criticism because he sells masks that are scarce and because the authorities (partly for that reason) advise against masks for non-healthcare workers. After the newspaper came, one man walks by the store and calls towards him: “Make money on someone else’s back! Go shame yourself!’. But Sweep tells that the mouth masks are from China (these are not scarce) and that the price he is asking — € 9 each — is nothing wrong with. They come from China: “No problem at all.”

The nursing home Hoostaate in Sittard hopes the Coronavirus rules won’t be relaxed soon by the Ministers. They were the first nursing home that closed the door voluntarily. Still, 29 people died there. Now there is a rule that family members are jot allowed to visit, the nurses are helping the elderly not to be lonely.

The Outbreak Management Team (OMT) is advising the Ministers about the Coronavirus policy. They are trying to look for ways to relax the Coronavirus rules. There is a very long list on the table with questions that need to be answered before the OMT gives the government new advise. These experts also look for reopening the schools. Probably the primary schools and kindergartens will be the first and they don’t have that many people from other regions. This has no effects on the IC-beds. Secondary schools do have a lot of people from other regions. That is what the OMT advises the government. The OMT is also looking for what the option is if we fallback, such as ‘partial opening of schools with additional rules’ are conceivable. The experts also look at the medical conditions under which the contact professions, the catering industry and the retail sector can start their activities. The team will also clarify the exit strategy and the degree of infection, the number of people infected by one patient. If it is less than 1, the epidemic slowly dies out.

“The first trip a Belgium village looks like a tour to Mali’, says the European correspondent Saskia Dekkers of NOS. the last few days she took the challenge to go through Europe by car. She visited Essen in Belgium, Antwerp and the French city Mulhouse to rapport her experiences. According to Saskia Dekkers, the normal thing to do has become special to do, such as crossing the borders. “We always passed the Belgian border crossing of Hazeldonk silently. Now there is a traffic jam. Seven police cars and more police officers check all cars. Ours also. Our official papers with stamps are not enough. Only when an agent opens our trunk and the camera see, we may cross the borders.”

So far, the government has €19 billion reserved for support measures for diverse sectors in The Netherlands. This has been a sum from all the letters written to the Ministery of Finance. The Ministery of Finance has sais it is true that the sum is about 19 billion euros. The money has been reserved and not yet given to ailing companies, freelancers or the cultural sector. These are estimates, which can, therefore, be higher or lower. It is difficult to estimate exactly what the corona crisis will cost the treasury. When the economic emergency measures were announced, the cabinet spoke of an amount between 10 and 20 billion euros, for this quarter alone.

Developers, computer security officers and privacy experts are not really impressed by the seven Corona-apps that were left over to become the official Corona-app. The live stream for presenting these streams ended Sunday evening. The apps will be used for contact research to know if people have been in contact with someone having Coronavirus. This way we can see if there are a lot of more infections. “None of those five apps meets the quality requirements of the Ministry,” said Benjamin Broersma of the Open State Foundation. “All apps have design flaws.”

There are a lot fewer Coornapatient on the IC’s. The slow drop is continuing. The patients who are in the IC are 1176, 25 fewer than one day before. 51 patients are in Germany on the IC. “We see that the picture of last week, of a steady decline, continues. The IC occupancy is now at 180 per cent of the normal level,” says Ernst Kuipers, chairman of the Landelijk Netwerk Acute Zorg. “The decreasing number of covid patients offers hospitals the opportunity to gradually resume normal care, and to open up more operating rooms, for example.”

The start of the Vuelta in Utrecht will be in 2022. If the Vuelta will be held this year, the Vuelta will start in the North-Spanish city Irun says the Baskisch newspaper El Diario Vasco. The change of start city has everything to do with the change of date of the Vuelta on the cycling calendar. The Vuelta — if there can take place a cycling tournament — will be held from 24 of October 2020. The organisation of the Vuelta don’t have to put all the plans into the bin.

In Limburg, there is busy in Heuvelland, even if this nature area was closed. The Safety region saw too many people in this nature area of South-Limburg. That is why the police, military police and enforcers have therefore started to issue fines. The area’s between A2, A79 and A76 is only acceptable for people who work there, going to visit family members and acquaintances. “It has unexpectedly become much busier than we thought. Not only cyclists but also motorists. We want to prevent large groups of people from gathering, so we have started to issue fines,” said the spokesman.

At a sporting field in Amsterdam-Southeast, the police have fined people for not keeping up the rules. There were twenty people who were there and not keeping 1,5 meter. Each of them must pay €390,-. Two people were taken with the police as they didn’t want to go away as the police asked. In Hoogeveen, the police fined eleven people for violating the measures. They held a party in a backyard. In Nijensleek, the police ended a party in a shack, which was set up as a pub. One person could be fined, the rest of the partygoers fled, according to the police. 28 fines were issued in Goes last night, the police reports. At two locations, ten and seven people were sitting together with too many people. When officers came to a report of noise nuisance, they found several more youngsters sitting together. They too have been fined.

Dutch cyclist Tom Dumoulin is counting on a different goal for cycling The Tour de France if this tournament is still to be held this year. He is doing the virtual Amstel Gold Race. you may cycle in his country, Belgium, only when you’re alone. The thing is that you can’t race well if you prepare in the hills of Limburg. They are nog big mountains. “If I can only cycle a little at sea level through the Limburg hills until the Tour, then my preparation is too weak to compete against riders who train in Andorra and Colombia, at height and in the mountains,” says Dumoulin. He needs to rethink about his goals for Le Tour de France.

“Top sport is ready for the rules to be expanded, but we are waiting”, says Maurits Hendriks from the Dutch sports association NOC*NSF. In Germany, the training centres are still open and top athletes can still train. In the Netherlands, the training centres have been closed since mid-March. In Germany, top athletes can go to the national training centres, albeit under strict conditions. Many top athletes have announced that they are eager to start again. The technical director of sports umbrella organization NOC*NSF Maurits Hendriks has argued with the cabinet for broadening the training options for top athletes.

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.

Read more Coronavirus stories:

• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 18 April 2020
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 17 April 2020
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 16 April 2020
• The Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 14 April 2020
• The Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 13 April 2020
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 12 April 2020
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 10 and 11 April 2020
• Realized The Weird Feeling Of This Time
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 7 April 2020
• Coronavirus In The Netherlands — Update 4, 5 and 6 April 2020
• Coronavirus in The Netherlands — Update 27 and 28 March 2020
• Coronavirus in The Netherlands — update 26 March 2020
• Coronavirus Stories and What Emotions do with us
• Coronavirus in The Netherlands — update 25 March 2020
• Coronavirus in The Netherlands — Update 22 and 23 March 2020
• Coronavirus: How To Live As Normal As Possible
• Coronavirus in The Netherlands — Update 21 March 2020
• The Coronavirus in The Netherlands
• Coronavirus — Get The Positive Thoughts and Focus

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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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