COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands
The COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands has resulted in 8,148,869[1] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 22,373[1] deaths.
The virus reached the Netherlands on 27 February 2020, when its first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Tilburg.[5] It involved a 56-year-old Dutchman who had arrived in the Netherlands from Italy, where the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to enter Europe. As of 31 January 2021, there are 978,475 confirmed cases of infections and 13,998 confirmed deaths.[6] The first death occurred on 6 March, when an 86-year-old patient died in Rotterdam.[7]
On the advice of the Outbreak Management Team (OMT), under supervision of Jaap van Dissel, measures were taken by the Third Rutte cabinet for the public health to prevent the spread of this viral disease, including the "intelligent lockdown".[8] The government strategy on pandemic control has been criticised[9][10] for the refusal to acknowledge the role of asymptomatic spread and the role of masks in preventing spread,[11] as well as for the lack of testing capacity, in particular during the first half of 2020.[12] In March 2020, Prime Minister Mark Rutte called for herd immunity as an important method to stop the pandemic.[13] On 23 January 2021, as the government imposed a nationwide 9:00 p.m. curfew in a context of emergence of the British variant, the worst riots in 40 years broke out across the country.
Since the end of November 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is spreading in parts of Europe (i.e. UK, Denmark and France). The number of registered new infections has risen strongly. There is a lockdown in the Netherlands from 19 December 2021 to (at least) 14 January 2022.[14]
On 12 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, who had initially come to the attention of the WHO on 31 December 2019.[15][16]
Unlike SARS of 2003, the case fatality rate for COVID-19[17][18] has been much lower, but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.[19][17]
