Next press conference in NL.
- The current lockdown is finally working, numbers are going down, but it's going too slow.
- The current lockdown was till the 19th January, we will get a 3 week extension til 9th of February.
80% of the NL public understands that an extension is necessary. 61% says it should get stricter, 16% says we should have less or no measures.
- British mutation is here and the fear is to have the same situation as in London. 2-5% of our infections are the British mutation.
- The British mutation is considered to be a new problem on top of Covid-19.
- A curfew is back on the table, but not right away. They are investigating now how it would impact us and if it would help. Next week more news.
Still there is no majority for this in our government.
- Next week we will also get information what the next support for the economy will be.
- We have capacity for 100K tests per day, about 50% is used. And about 25% of people who are tested positive, do go out anyway.
- We will start testing everyone in certain communities to see what this does.
- Germany says they migth go into lockdown till April, our government is not going to look that far ahead as things change so fast.
- Lots of communication between NL, Germany and Austria to discuss what works and what we can do.
- Too many people still go on holiday abroad, once more the advice: stay in NL.
- Primary schools might reopen the 25th of January, because it's getting too much for the children & parents.
- High schools might reopen if they can keep 1,5 distance (+ masks)
- Later this month we would start testing with sport matches, theater shows to see what it did. For now this is put on hold.
- We are on schedule with the vaccinations, ICU-staff etc. all done, some hospitals had some non-priority staff vaccinated and they were reprimanded.
90-95% of the ICU staff got vaccinated.
- Next week we will start with all the people living in nursing homes, Moderna arrived yesterday. Everyone who is considered vulnerable will be vaccinated before Spring.
Figures:
- % positive results dropped from 13,7% to 12,8%
- 56.440 new infections two weeks ago, 49.398 last week
- Infections going down, but deaths not. Yesterday 153 deaths, the average for last week was 106 deaths per day, the week before 89.
That's truly confusing, especially when until very recently, your Premier's approval rating was the highest in the nation.
