Home » Amsterdam tired of the lockdown: infections do not decrease, but the government is ready to reopen (even the stadiums)

Amsterdam tired of the lockdown: infections do not decrease, but the government is ready to reopen (even the stadiums)

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AMSTERDAM – There is a girl in work clothes who sees the camera and approaches the journalist, despite speaking another language: “Catch me, interview me, please, I want to talk”. The “work” clothes are a skimpy little dress with which he would normally have waited for visitors in one of the hundreds of shop windows of De Wallen, the best-known red light district in Europe. In the city that celebrated prostitution even with a statue, legal prostitution is prohibited. Only the latest of the paradoxes of Amsterdam. From the airport to the central station it is difficult to notice. But just go out and step on the pavement outlined by the canals that seem to have gone back 14 months. On bicycles, among pedestrians, the mask is a forgotten object: the wearer has lowered it around his neck, and they are white flies.

The numbers of infections say that the virus exists, circulates and kills: over 17,000 deaths out of a population of 17 million, a contagion index kept very high by 8,000 daily infections, about half compared to Italy, which, however, has over three times as many as the inhabitants of the Netherlands. What is completely absent is perception. Not only of the people, who gather in the squares without face protection. The containment and tracking measures of the virus are almost zero, undergoing a swab seems to be a privilege of a few (only 70,000 a day). “I? I’ve never done a Covid test, I hardly know anyone who has done it, ”the hotelier tells us, smiling and perhaps surprised by the question.

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The safest way to be tested is at the airport, by appointment by registering the health card, but only for those who can show a boarding pass. For a citizen who does not intend to leave it is a gymnastics. An antigenic test, the so-called rapid swab, is not impossible to find, but it often takes longer than 10 hours, certainly not the canonical 15 minutes. And there are those who demand payments exclusively via Paypal or with Instant payment systems from their smartphone. But also the prices are not joking, about triple compared to our country: the quick test starts from 59.95 euros, a molecular one from no less than 90 and can even reach 150 euros. With extra charge for those who need a travel certificate.

Difficulties affecting the general conditions. The streets are frescoed by a constellation of lowered shutters. Closed restaurants and bars, with the usual exceptions of McDonalds and burgers. Less than a month has passed since the anti-lockdown demonstration sedated with batons and fire hydrants in The Hague, where the royal family resides. On Thursday, on some buildings in the center, it was possible to read the protest banners of sex workers, who went from tourist attraction (and taxpayers in all respects) to outcasts after the government’s ban on prostitution. Of the shop windows there are only red curtains drawn and advertisements to rent the spaces, now deserted. The effect is that many have equipped themselves to continue their smart working activity illegally. From home or hotel: two hotels in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago were closed precisely because they were identified as places where forbidden meetings took place. And often, to avoid heavy penalties, hotels are the ones who report suspicious situations.

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Until now, Covid has allowed the Dutch to regain possession of spaces invaded by mass tourism, the one that had driven house prices crazy and harassed residents with shouts and rudeness, when not real crime. Prime Minister Mark Rutte will have to decide on the easing of some measures on Sunday: since the end of March the curfew of 9pm has been postponed to 10pm. the 2 and 7 thousand. Yet cases remain essentially stable despite tampons having decreased by 10% compared to last week. An alarm that, going around Amsterdam, seems the fruit of the imagination of some visionary. Exactly: it seems.

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