The executive said bars and restaurants will return to pre-pandemic opening hours, and announced the end of mandatory mask-wearing in most public places.
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“The country is opening again”, welcomed the Minister of Health. The Dutch government announced on Tuesday, February 15, the lifting from February 25 of most health restrictions in the Netherlands, the country recording a drop in hospitalizations and contaminations.
The executive said bars and restaurants will return to pre-pandemic opening hours, and announced the end of the mask-wearing requirement in most public places as well as the social distancing rule . Masks will remain compulsory on public transport as well as at airports, authorities said, warning that the pandemic was not “not finished” and that the vulnerable still needed to be careful.
The Netherlands had imposed some of the strictest restrictions in Europe in December after a spike in cases due to the Omicron variant, before gradually lifting them. The Netherlands has seen violent protests in 2021 against coronavirus restrictions, with police shooting and injuring several protesters in Rotterdam in November.