Netherlands to allow some school openings but extends ban on events
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The Netherlands on Tuesday extended by three months a ban on major public events, including professional sports and music festivals, until Sept. 1 to prevent a resurgence of coronavirus infections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
At the same time, Rutte said an “encouraging” slowdown in the spread of the virus would enable elementary schools and daycare centres to partly reopen on May 11.
Rutte said limitations on the easing of restrictive measures were necessary to prevent a new wave of COVID-19 cases. “It’s better to be cautious now than to have regrets later,” he told a televised press conference.
“I would love to say we could go a lot further. But that is very scary and dangerous. We see a little improvement in the data, but just imagine that we would relax some measures, causing the virus to peak again. That’s something we all absolutely don’t want.”
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Netherlands rose in the past 24 hours by 729 to 34,134, health authorities said on Tuesday, with 165 new deaths from the lung disease.
Total deaths stand at 3,916, the Netherlands Institute for Health (RIVM) said in its daily update.
