Strict rules of the crown in the Netherlands: “Partial lockdown”



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reThe Netherlands is reacting to the rapidly increasing number of infections, which are among the highest in Europe, with new measures. Beginning Wednesday night, restaurants, pubs, cafes and coffee shops across the country will be required to close for the first four weeks. The innkeepers will be partially compensated for this. Alcohol cannot be sold in stores after 8 pm A household can host a maximum of three guests. Adult contact sports will be restricted, professional team soccer matches must continue without spectators. Restrictions must be checked after two weeks.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte spoke of a “partial lockdown” when he presented the measures Tuesday night. Health Minister Hugo de Jonge threatened to impose a “total closure” if they did not have sufficient effect. The government wants the use of protective face and nose masks to be mandatory indoors, but only on a new legal basis. “We have to regulate this legally,” Rutte said. Medically they make sense.

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With almost 7,000 new cases of contagion, the country reported a new record on Tuesday; during the first wave of the pandemic it was a maximum of 1,300 per day. Regarding the incidence value, the Netherlands has surpassed Spain and ranks third in the European Union (387), behind Belgium (430) and the Czech Republic (522); Germany, on the other hand, only gets 51 positive tests for 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days. The proportion of positive tests in all tests rose to 14 percent. De Jonge said the virus was spreading so fast that contact tracing couldn’t keep up. A goal was set to reduce the reproduction rate from 1.3 to 0.8 before restrictions could be replaced by local measures.

The government’s reluctance to wear protective masks is linked to constitutional and political concerns. An expert panel, the so-called Outbreak Management Team, advised against imposing a blanket mask requirement in July. Then the government left it up to the mayors to make local arrangements. The big cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague used it; Protective masks are a must on busy shopping streets, inside and out. The courts considered the requirements to be legal, but only due to local limitation.

Dramatically enforcing crown rules in the Netherlands: Prime Minister Mark Rutte


Dramatically enforcing crown rules in the Netherlands: Prime Minister Mark Rutte
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Image: dpa

The basic problem of the Netherlands is that, unlike its neighbors, it still does not have an infection protection law that allows the government to intervene in basic rights for reasons of protection of public health. Since the beginning of the pandemic, all restrictions have been enforced with emergency regulations. This also applies to the new measures that Rutte announced Tuesday night. Constitutional lawyers argue that a general mask requirement cannot be enforced by emergency ordinance because that would violate articles 10 (right to privacy) and 11 (right to physical integrity) of the constitution. “Without a legal basis, the government cannot prescribe clothing for citizens,” says Jan Brouwer, professor of law at the University of Groningen.

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