Curfew in the Netherlands

After much deliberation, the parliament here has introduced curfews from 9:00 PM till 4:30 AM for two weeks starting yesterday. Having spent over a month locked down, this feels particularly oppressive.

The number of people you are now allowed to have over at your home (but not during the curfew!) is also down to one.

Worse, AstraZeneca announced yesterday that they’d be able to supply only 40% of the doses they had originally agreed on. Their vaccine, even before European Medicines Agency’s official approval, has been a major part of the Dutch vaccination strategy.

Without widespread vaccination and with more contagious variants of the virus continuing to emerge, I feel that a mix of total or partial lockdowns are going to be a norm till at least the end of this year.

I’d love to be wrong.

To make ourselves feel better, and remind ourselves that we are still allowed to be outside during the day, the wife and I took a couple of days off from work to walk around Amsterdam. We’ve been making most of the improving daylight to explore neighbourhoods both familiar and new. Some pictures from today:


Date
January 24, 2021