Netherlands: still too many infections. The Bishops, “The Covid figures call for caution and restraint”. 10% of devotees in larger churches

With a very fluctuating but still assumedly “extremely serious” state of infections, and the vaccine campaign still going on, the Dutch Bishops decided to “slightly increase the number of people attending the celebrations”. Since last weekend, only the churches that have more than 300 regular seats can take in as many people as 10% of their total seats. “Because of the current state of the pandemic, restrictions cannot be reduced any further than this”, the Bishops state. The other churches cannot let more than 30 people attend any celebration yet. “The current Covid figures still call for caution and restraint”, wrote the Bishops, who called everyone, once again, to adhere to all the measures laid down by the applicable protocol, “Church Life. In one and a half metre distance”. “Churches must not become a source of infection”, insist the Bishops, who express their gratitude to the parishes “for the efforts made to keep carefully adhering to the protocol”. Since 28th April, the Government has lifted the curfew and high-school students have gone back to school, but the second stage for the lifting of restrictions, which should have started on May 11th, will not happen, because the number of hospitalisations is decreasing much more slowly than the authorities’ projections had predicted.

Valentina Bombelli