Coronavirus update in the Netherlands

 Throughout these last couple of months, like the United States, the Netherlands has seen an uptick in Covid cases. However, unlike the United States, in July, the Netherlands saw a drastic rise in cases. After reaching a peak in daily new cases on April 22, with a total of 9,611 new cases, the Netherlands witnessed a steady and optimistic decline over the following two months, reaching an all time low of daily new cases on June 27: a mere 498 total cases. During these two months, the fall in cases could be attributed to firm restrictions and increasing vaccination rates. And as a result of declining cases, the Dutch government felt it apt to loosen restrictions for restaurants, nightclubs, and other establishments beginning in mid June. 

While things seemed to be heading in the right direction throughout June, after its all time low on June 27, the Netherlands saw the most rapid uptick in daily new cases throughout the entire pandemic. In just three weeks, daily new cases had gone from 498 on June 27 to 11,297 on July 16, only a couple thousand of cases below the Netherlands’ all time pandemic peak of about 13,000 daily new cases back in December. These rapid new cases could be attributed to a couple of key factors: the reopening of nightclubs and other large events, and the onset of the new and highly contagious delta variant. Interestingly, while the surge in cases is of course, worrisome, Covid deaths in the Netherlands remained more or less steady, with less than ten people dying a day. The most recent death statistics remain far better than numbers in the winter, which reached a peak of 173 daily deaths. 

While the Dutch government did impose new restrictions in mid July to help combat these rising cases, they recognized that so long as hospital admissions remained relatively tolerable, and deaths were fairly minimal, they could balance the urge to end restrictions while still keeping Dutch citizens safe. 

Currently, cases have been declining since mid July, and the government expects to ease restrictions starting August 13. 

Sources: 

Netherlands. Worldometer. (n.d.). https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/. 

Corona archives. DutchNews.nl. (n.d.). https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/category/corona/. 

Ministerie van Algemene Zaken. (2021, July 9). No choice but to take summertime measures in face of rapid increase in infections. News item | Government.nl. https://www.government.nl/topics/coronavirus-covid-19/news/2021/07/09/no-choice-but-to-take-summertime-measures-in-face-of-rapid-increase-in-infections.