Bars and restaurants have been ordered to close in the Netherlands along with a string of other measures as the country attempts to curb rising coronavirus cases.
From Wednesday the partial lockdown will come into force, after prime minister Mark Rutte said the country had to take a step closer to a full lockdown to avoid health systems becoming overwhelmed.
It is just one European country to strengthen measures against a second wave of COVID-19, with Italy, France, and the Czech Republic also taking action on Tuesday.
“We have to be tougher on ourselves,” Rutte said in a televised address, as he said “too many people didn’t respect the rules and we could do not anything else other than increase measures”.
Further measures include the wider mandatory use of facemasks, limiting household guests to just three people, and banning the sale of alcohol after 8pm.
“If things don’t go well over the next weeks, we will move toward a full lockdown,” he warned, adding “the hammer to kill the virus must be big enough.”
The official death toll from the virus in the Netherlands is 6,587. – Euronews.
