Dutch leader expected to announce tough coronavirus lockdown

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is expected to impose a tough lockdown as coronavirus infection rates in the Netherlands rise sharply despite a two-month “partial lockdown.”

Virus Outbreak Netherlands

The Dutch prime minister is expected to impose a tough month-long coronavirus lockdown Monday night in a speech to the nation after infection rates in the Netherlands rose sharply despite a two-month “partial lockdown.”

Dutch media, citing unnamed government sources, said Prime Minister Mark Rutte will likely order schools to close beginning Wednesday and shut non-essential shops and businesses such as hair salons, museums and theaters starting Tuesday until Jan. 19.

The government did not immediately confirm the reports.

Bars and restaurants have been closed since mid-October. The partial lockdown initially slowed high infection rates, but they have been rising again in recent days.

The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Netherlands has risen over the past two weeks from 29.22 new cases per 100,000 people on Nov. 29 to 47.47 per 100,000 people on Dec. 13.

“It's serious. It's very serious,” Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said Monday ahead of a Cabinet meeting to discuss action to rein in the spread of the virus. “We see the infection numbers rising sharply in recent days, we see that hospital admissions are increasing again, the pressure on the health care sector remains high.”

Rutte's speech Monday evening comes a day after neighboring Germany announced similar coronavirus restrictions in an attempt to reduce its stubbornly high infection rates. Those measures also go well into January.

Some 10,000 people in the Netherlands are confirmed to have died of COVID-19 since the start of the outbreak.

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